Tipplers' day: Dry Gujarat high on liquor this election

The state governed by BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has recorded third-highest seizure of liquor among all states and union territories, the Election Commission disclosed on Thursday.

Updated on: Apr 18, 2014, 11:47:08 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The sale of liquor is banned in Gujarat but the election season has brought much delight to tipplers here. The state governed by BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has recorded third-highest seizure of liquor among all states and union territories, the Election Commission disclosed here on Thursday.

PK Dash, director-general in charge of expenditure monitoring at the poll panel said the seizure of liquor in Gujarat – 10 million litres -- was higher than bigger states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

And a probable reason could be prohibition.

Gujarat's liquor link is further strengthened by the fact that in neighbouring Daman and Diu, a union territory, EC officials have seized 15 million litre of illegal liquor, the second highest among Indian states and union territories.

The only state to beat Gujarat and Daman and Diu was Andhra Pradesh, where 79 million litre of illegal liquor ---- possessed without proper EC authorisation --was seized.

Another surprise state when it came to illegal liquor was West Bengal, where the Left parties and Trinamool Congress are pitted against each other. The state was fourth with 5.46 million litre seized.

Punjab this election is low on illegal liquor and high on drugs. The Punjab Police and Border Security Force have seized 1.4 kg of heroin worth R520 crore at the India-Pakistan border. The liquor seized was 4.54 million litre.

In all, 130 million litre of liquor and R216 crore of cash have been seized till Thursday. Like liquor, Andhra Pradesh also tops the list of cash seizures with R97 crore of unaccounted money found since elections were announced on March 5.

EC officials said that compared to the 2009 polls, when R190 crore in cash was seized, this election is witnessing a higher flow of unaccounted money even though the constituency-wise expenditure limit has been increased by about 70%.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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