Kolkata: Liquor shops to be shut from Friday to Sunday

KOLKATA: All liquor vendors across the city will have to shut their shop from Friday morning, almost 48 hours before the city votes in the parliamentary elections.
All recognized clubs — within close vicinity of polling booths — will have to remain shut from around the same time. In an unprecedented move, the election commissioner said these special measures were necessary to ensure free and fair polls in the last round of elections — a step political circles and cops feel will go a long way in stopping unwanted gathering of mobs and intimidation to voters.
In a meeting that special police observer Vivek Dubey held with both Kolkata Police commissioner Rajesh Kumar and Bidhannagar Police commissioner Ramesh Babu on Monday, the stress was to ensure that the “Midnapore model” – that of intimidating voters by barracking them could be possible.
The commission is not ready to take any chances regarding the elections in Kolkata and it’s adjacent areas, claimed highly placed sources. Sources in the commission said the observer himself asked the CPs to ensure so all the clubs in and around the polling to be closed from Friday. Accordingly, all police stations in Kolkata have been to convey the decision and take necessary and adequate actions on the same.
“The commission doesn’t want any kind of unnecessary elements to be on the move or outsiders to stay over the night at such shelters. The commission has also asked the city police to make sure there are no unnecessary assembling of people in and around the booths. All such complaints have to be dealt with as quickly as possible and there has to be evidence collected that action has been initiated,” a senior official of the election commission said.
The commission is also strict on the selling of liquor during the election process. Dubey has asked both Kumar and Babu to take steps regarding the selling of unauthorised alchohol in the city. Police, so far, has seized 16 lakh litres of alcohol from the state and commission wants the police to be stricter on this.