Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is pulling out all stops to woo voters and has promised to impose liquor ban in the state if her party is voted back to power in the upcoming state assembly elections.
“If I am re-elected then I will prohibit alcohol in a phased manner," she said during a campaign rally on Saturday where she launched an attack on bitter rival and DMK Chief Karunanidhi. She likened Karunanidhi's recent call for prohibition to 'devil quoting the scriptures' and claimed that it was he who had introduced alcohol in Tamil Nadu.
Read: DMK seeks immediate ban on liquor in Tamil Nadu
“Consumption of alcohol flourished under Karunanidhi and now he wants alcohol banned in the state,” she said. She pointed out that he had relaxed the dry law in 1971 and was raking up the matter for political reasons.
"Listen voters, prohibition was launched in Salem in 1937 and was extended in a phased manner and on January 30 1948, total prohibtion was launched in TN," she said launching her party's election campaign at the Island grounds here.
Assuring implementation of prohibition in Tamil Nadu, where liquor sales fetches about Rs 30,000 crore revenue, she said "when AIADMK assumes power again, total prohibition will be implemented in a phased manner," drawing loud applause.
Read: AIADMK announces candidates; Jayalalithaa to seek re-election from R K Nagar
"Always, my policy is to implement total prohibition. However, this cannot be done through a single signature. This can be done only in a phased manner," she said.
Recalling that liquor was introduced in 1971 by DMK and was available in Tamil Nadu for generations, she said "that is why this cannot be done away with in a single day." Assuring that it would be done in a staggered manner, she said that as a first step, working hours of liqour retail outlets would be reduced, followed by cutting down their numbers.
"As a first step, the timing of outlets and then their numbers will be cut down and later bars attached to retail outlets will be shut. Rehabilitation centres will be opened to treat liqour addicts and after taking all such measures, in a phased manner we will attain our goal of total prohibition," she said.
Jayalalithaa's assurance assumes significance as it comes against the backdrop of a sustained campaign by NGOs and persistent demand by Opposition parties, including DMK and PMK, for a dry regime.
All opposition parties are on the same page on the issue and they have promised to bring in dry law if voted to power.
Reeling out statistics, she said sale of liqour had jumped by 109 per cent during DMK rule (2010-11). Beer sales had jumped from 1.32 crore cartons in AIADMK regime in 2005-06 to 2.86 crore in 2010-11. This year, it has come down to 2.31 crore."
"From this, it can be understood that it was the DMK regime that made the people drink more," she said.
