Taking strong exception to Nitish Kumar asking BJP-ruled states to enforce liquor ban, senior BJP leader Sushil Modi asked the Bihar Chief Minister to first convince Congress, his new-found ally, to enforce prohibition in Congress-ruled states.
Besides convincing his ally to enforce the ban in Congress-ruled states of Karnataka, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the JD(U) national president should also ask the Left parties to ban liquor in states like Kerala, Tripura, and in Delhi where "his friend" Arvind Kejriwal's AAP government is in power, Modi said.
Taking a potshot at Kumar for carrying out a nation-wide campaign in favour of the liquor ban, Modi said the people of Bihar had voted him to power for development and not for touring the length and breath of the country to make a political capital out of enforcement of prohibition in the state.
The BJP leader also mocked at him for reportedly saying that enforcement of prohibition was consistent with socialist ideals and asked him whether he had forgotten the said principle when liquor was made available in villages for a decade.
"The Chief Minister has at the age of 64 suddenly discovered virtues in liquor ban to the extent that he says it is integral to socialist ideals... Was he ignorant of this virtue when his government was a flowing sea of liquor in Bihar for a decade?" the former deputy chief minister asked.
"The then Nitish Kumar government had no qualm in opening liquor shops near schools and colleges," he recalled.
The BJP itself was part of the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar for eight out of ten years.
