With the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections over, Khed and Junnar talukas in Pune district are now getting ready to host another election. The election symbols this time are just two: a standing bottle and a tilted bottle. Saying yes to the tilted bottle means the voters want the liquor shops in their village to shut, while a yes for the standing bottle means they want

the shops to remain in business.

Pait village in Khed taluka and Parunde in Junnar taluka have submitted a memorandum to the Pune district Collector and the excise department to evict liquor shops. They will hold an election this month to vote on the issue.

Vijay Chinchalkar, superintendent of the state excise department (Pune district), says the tehsildar of these areas will conduct an inquiry before conducting the election. If Pait and Parunde succeed in throwing out liquor shops, they won’t be the first in the district to do so. Till date, 13 villages in Pune have voted out liquor shops.

“Representatives of these villages submitted a memorandum before the Assembly elections. With the model code of conduct coming into place, this election could not be conducted then,’’ says Chinchalkar.

The procedure for such an election was laid out on June 30, 2003, in the rules in the Gazette of the excise department, which says that if 25 per cent of women in a village support a move to ban the sale of liquor in the village and put their names down on an application, it becomes mandatory for the excise department to close the shops selling liquor immediately and later hold an election. In the election, if more than 50 per cent women vote for closing the shops, the Collector, in consultation with the excise department, has to order them shut.

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