Election snippets: Liquor and politics go hand in hand

As elections draw closer, political parties seem to be enticing voters with booze! There have been a number of reports of police apprehending political party workers either distributing liquor, or planning to do so, in a number of states going to elections. Two news stories from UP and Punjab this Saturday: [caption id=“attachment_196617” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Bottles for votes? Reuters”]  [/caption] Uttar Pradesh: A candidate of a local party in Dehra dun has been arrested for allegedly distributing liquor to voters of his constituency ahead of the 30 January Assembly elections, police said today. Amit Singh, who is contesting on the ticket of Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha from Mussoorie, was arrested last evening in a raid. However, later, Singh was released on a personal bond. Punjab: Police have registered a case against two persons for carrying tokens allegedly provided by a political party supporter to take delivery of liquor bottles from local vendors. A case was yesterday registered against Gursewak Singh of Kot Ise Khan and Tehal Singh of Fatehgarh Panjtoor. An Excise official, who had seized 36 such tokens, had filed a complaint in this regard. The Excise department had earlier received complaints that some candidates were trying to influence voters by offering them free liquor. On Thursday, the department had seized about 131 cartons of liquor belonging to the vend owner of Kokari Kalan as these boxes were kept at an unauthorised place. Another 54 cartons were seized from Sadhanwali Basti Moga. About a fortnight back, a similar raid was carried out at the house of a woman, who was acting as a courier, in which police had seized eight cartons of liquor. PTI