The Oommen Chandy government’s sanction of bar licences to six 5-star hotels recently has landed the UDF’s campaign in trouble as the much touted liquor policy is a major campaign plank of the ruling alliance.

Though the sanction of licence is technically in accordance with the policy that only 5-star hotels would be allowed to run bars, it has put the UDF on the defensive, with the Assembly election less than four weeks away.

The sanction has baffled senior UDF leaders as the front is relying heavily on the liquor policy — which shuttered 730 bars attached to hotels with the rating of up to four stars — to get votes, mostly of women, in the May 16 polling.

VMSudheeran, president of the Kerala unit of Congress, as well as Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who heads one faction within the Congress, have promised to review the issue at Wednesday’s UDF meeting.

The Opposition LDF immediately seized on the opportunity to beat the UDF campaign.

Senior CPI(M) leader VS Achuthanandan taunted the UDF about its ‘double-standards’ over the liquor policy.

The LDF, which insists that a total ban on alcohol will not work, says in its manifesto that if it comes to power it will actively promote abstinence.

Campaign tool

The current liquor policy, which has cut down on liquor availability, is a potent campaign tool for the UDF against the LDF’s ambivalent’ abstinence policy.

The licences were given to three new hotels and to three 3-star hotels that were upgraded to 5-star status after undergoing renovation and remodelling.

Following the implementation of the liquor policy, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in December last year, there has been a surge in applications from former 3- and 4-star hotels to get upgraded to 5-star status, clearly with an eye on the lucrative bar business.

Though Chandy has defended the decision, saying that the licences were given strictly in accordance with the declared policy and that it was just an administrative measure, it has offended other UDF leaders, including Sudheeran and Chennithala, Chandy’s main rivals within the Congress.

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