Indore: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharti’s move to tie cows in front of a liquor shop as part of her campaign against alcohol in Madhya Pradesh was a “good thing”, state Home minister Narottam Mishra said on Friday.
Bharti on Thursday tied stray cows in front of a liquor shop in Orchha town, over 450 kilometres from here, and fed them hay as she called upon people to drink cow milk and shun alcohol.
The former chief minister is spearheading a campaign against liquor consumption in the BJP-ruled state and maintained the government should not cash in on the habit of drinking.
“It is a good thing,” Mishra said when queried about Bharti’s act in Orchha.
She had thrown cow dung on the same liquor shop in June last year and had thrown a stone at a liquor vend in Bhopal in March last year.
While Bharti had started off by seeking total prohibition in the state, she is now demanding regularisation of alcohol sale in the state, where Assembly polls are due by the end of the year.
On Congress MLA Sanjay Yadav backing Bharti and announcing he would join hands with her to end the rampant sale of illegal liquor in villages under “government protection”, Mishra said the opposition party was latching on other’s efforts as it is devoid of issues to combat the BJP.
Speaking at a Republic Day function, MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said his state would come up with a new excise police that would discourage drinking.
Meanwhile, Mishra refuted reports of an activist of the banned Popular Front of India being held in Sheopur.
Queried on the renaming of Islam Nagar in Bhopal as Jagdishpur, Mishra said the move was a reflection of the people’s demand.
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