'Who will come if there is no bar?': Rajasthan Minister urges state hotels to sell liquor

Rajasthan Minister and Congress leader Pratap Singh Khachariyawas on Tuesday said that the state-owned hotels should start selling liquor to make more money and avoid losses. 

Pratap Khachariyawas, who is the Minister of Transport in Ashok Gehlot's cabinet in Rajasthan, was addressing an event at the Gangaur Hotel in Jaipur when he said that the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation Limited (RTDC) should start selling beer and alcohol at its hotel to make up for its losses and maintain operations.

Adding further, the Congress leader asserted that the state's transport undertaking would make so much money from the sale of alcohol that it would lose track of it. Khachariyawas said that in order to draw customers, every hotel and restaurant in this day and age needs to have a bar, adding that if they don't provide alcohol, their businesses will fail.

“Who will come (to RTDC hotels) if there is no bar?” the Minister said, ANI reported. He also claimed that the RTDC was once known for serving liquor to guests at its hotels and that it should start selling liquor at its establishments again. "Earlier, you (RTDC) used to sell beer. Now, you need to take the licence back (from the government). I guarantee that after this, there will be no shortage of money," Khachariyawas said.

'Poor are not concerned about PFI, they want bread': Khachariawas

Earlier on Tuesday, while reacting to Home Minister Amit Shah's remarks on banning the Popular Front of India (PFI), Khachariawas said that Congress never objected to the ban on the outfit. 

Speaking to the media, he said, "What is PFI? I came to know that it is the Popular Front of India... It is the BJP which spreads communal hatred through the media... The Centre banned PFI, but when did Congress object to it? The fact is the poor are not concerned about PFI, RSS, or BJP; they are concerned about their bread." It is pertinent to mention that in February 2022, the Congress-led Rajasthan government allowed now banned-PFI to hold an annual march on the latter's formation day in Kota, which received backlash from the BJP.

Notably, HM Shah on Tuesday had said that PFI promoted “radicalism and religious bigotry” and tried to prepare “raw material for terrorism”, and any delay in banning it would not have been in the national interest.

(With inputs from ANI)