Prohibition will pave way for illicit liquor: CM

Chennai, Mar 15 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said introduction of total prohibition was not possible as it would only pave the way for illicit liquor.

Answering queries, Mr Karunanidhi regretted that those who remained silent when 'liquor flowed freely' during the regimes of late Chief Minister M G Ramachandran and former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, were now criticising the DMK government on this score.

In a reference to PMK founder leader S Ramadoss's demand for closing down TASMAC shops, selling Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), the Chief Minister said these people who were taking on the DMK government now, had remained silent when MGR, for the first time in 1983 had entrusted the state-owned TASMAC with wholesale procurement of IMFL and Ms Jayalalithaa opened bars in TASMAC shops.

Whenever the DMK came to power, these people criticised the government for its prohibition policy, he said, adding it would be appropriate at this juncture to represent the reply he had made on the floor of the House in 1990 on the possibility of imposing total prohibition.

During the debate on the Budget in 1990, Mr Karunanidhi had brought to the notice of the House an Article appeared in 'Probe India' by Mr Misra, that when Gujarat was under total prohibition, illicit liquor flowed freely in that state.

He also reeled out statistics to reject suggestions that liquor related crimes were on low when Tamil Nadu was under total prohibition between 1961 and 1970.

He recalled his reply to the state Assembly in 1990 that when the state was under prohibition, police had registered cases against 1,12,889 people under the Prohibition Act in 1961.

UNI