"People are watching you": Bihar Minister takes dig at Tejashwi Yadav over his remark on toddy

Patna (Bihar) [India], March 8 (ANI): Bihar Minister Shrawon Kumar on Saturday took a dig at Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Bihar Assembly's Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav over his promise to remove toddy from the Bihar Excise and Prohibition Act, saying that everyone in the state had resolved not to consume toddy when a ban was imposed on liquor.
Speaking to the media, Kumar said that the Bihar government, through the Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana, helped families sustain their livelihoods through the production and sale of toddy, integrating it into the mainstream of society.
"When liquor was banned in Bihar, everyone took a resolution not to consume liquor, toddy or any kind of such substance. If you break your resolution for the votes of the people, then the people are watching you," he said.
"The Bihar government launched a scheme, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana, for those who used to sustain their livelihood through the production and sale of liquor and toddy. We identified such families and joined them in the mainstream of society," the Bihar minister added.
This comes after the Leader of Opposition and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in poll-bound Bihar promised to make changes to the state Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, by keeping toddy out of its ambit. He said people engaged in the toddy tapping belong to the Pasi (Dalits) community and their only source of income was toddy tapping.
The RJD leader said he held several rounds of talks with representatives of the Pasi community, who have been traditionally involved in tapping toddy, following which a decision will be taken to stop the harassment of marginalised people through prohibition.
"After several rounds of talks with the Pasi community, we announced in a press conference today that once our government is formed, we will exclude the sale of natural beverage "toddy" for the livelihood of the Pasi brothers from the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act-2016" the RJD leader wrote in a post on X.
The RJD leader also sought to put the blame on State government for deaths due to the consumption of spurious liquor.
"According to an estimate, till now more than two thousand people have died due to poisonous liquor or it can be said that the government has murdered them," his post read.
Yadav raised the issue of lakhs of people being jailed due to the state's prohibition law, claiming that mainly people from the Dalit and backward classes get jailed for such offenses, and as such, they are being harassed because of the law.
"Under the prohibition law, till now about 12 lakh 80 thousand people have been sent to jail, in which 98-99 per cent of people are from Dalit and backward classes. Under the guise of this law, poor people have been harassed a lot by the NDA government. A large population of Dalit and Pasi society is being exploited physically, socially, mentally and economically," Tejashwi Yadav's post read.
Criticising the Prohibition law, Yadav quoted a court's observation that the Act has "deviated from its purpose."
Assembly elections in Bihar are due in October this year. The Election Commission of India has not yet announced the dates of the polls. (ANI)