RJD slams Nitish Kumar for telling people to 'stay away from Bihar if you drink'

Countering Bihar CM Nitish Kumar's hard stance on prohibition, RJD on Wednesday, claimed if Kumar's proclamations were followed the state will remain impoverished. Listing industries, IT parks, tourism, investment, RJD said that Bihar will lose on all of the above because of Nitish Kumar's stance on liquor. RJD told citizens, "Support him to promote poverty".

RJD: 'Bihar will remain poor due to Nitish's ego'

Similarly, RJD spokesperson Ritu Jaiswal countered Nitish's remark that Gandhi ji had called drinking a 'social evil'. She tweeted, "If Bapu was among us today, he himself would not have liked to come to Bihar after seeing his model of prohibition". RJD youth chief Qari Sohaib shared a picture of Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik attending a classroom lecture to ascertain the level of education in his state. Comparing Patnaik to Kumar, he said, "Our Sushasan babu is wandering door-to-door in search of liquor".

On Monday, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, called for public shaming of those flouting liquor ban in the state, while hardening his stance against relaxing the stringent prohibition law for those coming to the dry state from elsewhere. Kumar had recently said that he would rethink the prohibition law amid deaths to spurious liquor in the state. He said the police had been asked to protect those who blew the whistle and sought to put wrongdoers to shame.

Addressing a gathering of women's self help groups "Jeevika" in Sasaram, Kumar said, "don't come to Bihar if you find the ban inconvenient". Reiterating that relaxing the ban for visitors from outside was out of the question, the Chief Minister claimed his decision to impose prohibition was admired widely and he was invited by advocacy groups in UP and Jharkhand to share his experience after he took the step in 2016. Invoking Mahatma Gandhi to stress that drinking was a "social evil", Kumar quoted from a WHO report to underscore health hazards that were directly associated with drinking.

Contrasting Nitish, CJI NV Ramana on Sunday, had chosen Bihar's prohibition law as an example of a legislature that 'lacked foresight'. He added that the law has “not been able to make optimum use” of the Parliament Standing Committee system to “enhance scrutiny of Bills”. This he claimed had led to courts being inundated with cases.