A day after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Union minister Uma Bharti triggered a row by vandalising liquor bottles at a local shop in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal, she wrote a letter to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday, 14 March, justifying her act.
In a letter written to the chief minister in Hindi, Bharti said she carried out the act to protect the "honour" of women in the area. The act, she said, was also intended to remind Chouhan to implement liquor ban in the state.
Bharti wrote in her letter that she visited Barkheda Pathani area of the city on Sunday at the request of the women residents of the neighbourhood.
"The women informed me about the existence of a liquor shop at the area's labourer colony which is surrounded by schools and temples," she said, adding that the women of the region had been protesting against operation of the liquor shop since the past three years, but their efforts had gone in vain, she wrote.
Whenever complaints were raised, the local administration had assured to close these shops, but it hasn't happened since several years, she said in her letter adding that she was prompted to attack the shop after some women told her with tears in their eyes that after consuming alcohol, several men relieve themselves in the open behind the shop. This was embarrassing for the women and girls there, she wrote.
"At that point, I asked those near the shop to move aside, picked up a stone and threw it with full force to damage the liquor bottles in protest," she stated in her letter, reported The Print.
What Had Happened?
On Sunday, Bharti entered a local liquor shop in Bhopal and vandalised a few liquor bottles there. Visuals of the incident showed Bharti breaking the liquor bottles by throwing a rock.
The former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh has since asked the local administration to shut down the liquor shop within a week's time.
Last year, Bharti, who has been demanding for a complete liquor ban in the state since a long time had announced that she would "hit the streets with a stick" if the state doesn't prohibit liquor selling by 15 January.
Taking to Twitter, Bharti, wrote that a number of liquor shops at Barkheda Pathani area sell liquor at a enclosed space along a colony where labourers reside.
"The entire earning of the workers gets drained out at these shops. The residents and women here had raised objections, staged dharna in protest because this shop is against the government policy," she wrote in a tweet attaching the video of the incident.
Meanwhile, just a couple of days after Bharti's deadline, the Madhya Pradesh government announced its new excise policy, reducing the prices of liquor.
The state further reduced the excise duty on foreign liquor by 10 to 13 percent. Besides, shops have been allowed to sell both foreign and country liquor, reported NDTV.
Currently, there are 2,544 shops selling country liquor and 1,061 shops selling foreign liquor in the state.
(With inputs from NDTV, The Print.)
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