The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) has come out strongly against the LDF government’s liquor policy, terming it a challenge to the people who had voted it to power on an anti-liquor plank.
Council president Archbishop Soosai Pakiam M. said here on Saturday that the liquor policy suggested a ‘policy distortion’ and warned the government not to force the people to the streets over the issue.
“It is painful to see the LDF government turning into slaves of liquor and the liquor lobby after having come to power promising the people that it will not sanction any new bar and would promote abstinence,” the Archbishop said. The LDF government, he said, had chosen to deviate from its declared liquor policy at a time when the Supreme Court verdict on relocating liquor outlets from national highways had aroused much hope in the minds of the people.
The manner in which the court had concluded the case protecting the interests of bar owners and liquor industrialists was also a matter of concern for the people. “All these actions have demolished the people’s expectations about this government,” he said.
In Kozhikode, Thamarassery Bishop Remigiose Inchananiyil, who heads the Madya Virudha Samithi under the KCBC, said the new policy uncovered the LDF’s double standards. “It will be like another Ockhi in Kerala,’’ Bishop Inchananiyil told The Hindu. “The government has duped the voters. It has the responsibility to explain to the people why it has backed off from the poll promise. The promise was a farce meant to hoodwink the people," he said.
The Bishop said the samithi would observe April 2 as ‘black day’ in Kerala in protest against the implementation of the new liquor policy. The Church would soon launch a series of public awareness campaigns to ‘expose’ the new liquor policy. “Reopening bars and opening new retail outlets will only drag the youth to the wrong path. In future, the government will be held responsible for the increasing number of murders and rapes,” he said.
Bishop Inchananiyil rejected the government's justification that the new liquor policy was meant to support the tourism industry. “If they are so much concerned about tourism, why don’t they try to implement at least the Gujarat model of prohibition?” he asked.
