BJP ally seeks ban on liquor in UP

UP government has said that a ban is not feasible as the revenue funds welfare schemes.

Taking a cue from Nitish Kumar in Bihar, an ally of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh has continued to demand a liquor ban in Uttar Pradesh. Om Prakash Rajbhar, Cabinet minister and president of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), started his campaign from Varanasi this week. It will cumulate into a public rally on Sunday, thus bringing the SBSP’s unfulfilled pre-poll demands to the forefront. Whether Nitish Kumar will join Rajbhar’s movement anytime soon is not yet clear.

Continuing his demand to ban liquor, Rajbhar told The Sunday Guardian, “I can assure you that we will not compromise on our demand to ban liquor. Neither will we end our demand to categorise beneficiaries of caste-based reservation. We have fought the fight against liquor for 15 years. The people who vote for us put their trust in meeting their demands, which is why we cannot compromise on this front.”

Despite the Yogi Adityanath government’s statement in the state Assembly that a ban on liquor is not feasible since the revenue earned funds the state’s welfare schemes, Rajbhar said, “We came into power because of the promises we made to our voters. We cannot go back on that. Various other means to earn revenue can be worked out; after all, there are eight states in the country that have banned alcohol, then why cannot Uttar Pradesh do it?”

State BJP president Mahendra Nath Pande had warned the dissident party leaders and leaders of the ally parties earlier this week to exercise “restraint” in their language; nonetheless, Rajbhar has continued to demand a ban on alcohol and categorisation of reserved classes.

Asked about the reason for Rajbhar’s outburst in public domain at the risk of losing his position, he said, “I do not have any differences with the government. There are officers in the government who are sending wrong feedback to Lucknow. The lists for home, food, gas etc. subsidies have names of people who are not eligible to get those subsidies, yet they get sanctioned from Lucknow. People in Lucknow need to stay informed. Recently, we saw judges coming out to speak to media, there must have been some internal problem that they had to do so.” Rajbhar also criticised the trade of alcohol during elections. Rajbhar’s contention with the UP government has aggravated since March, given that the government did not yet concede to his complaints about OBCs not getting a uniform share of the state benefits.

Rajbhar has been a vocal proponent of breaking up the 27% quota into three subcategories—“backward”, “extremely backward” and “most backward”. This formula was first recommended by the social justice committee appointed by then BJP Chief Minister Rajnath Singh in 2001 that SBSP has been demanding to be implemented.

In the backdrop of this dispute, Adityanath finds himself torn between an ally demanding a ban on alcohol, on the one hand, and revenue department experts suggesting otherwise.