The Maharashtra excise department on Sunday cancelled the permit for serving alcohol at actor-singer Diljit Dosanjh’s Dil-Luminati concert in the Kothrud area of Pune later in the evening, an official said.
What’s the issue?
The department cancelled the permit after people from different quarters, including Kothrud’s newly elected BJP MLA Chandrakant Patil, objected to plans to serve liquor at the programme.
State excise commissioner C Rajput said, “The state excise department has cancelled the permission to serve liquor during the programme.”
MLA Patil raised an objection against the concert scheduled at Kakade Farm in Kothrud later in the evening.
The BJP leader, in a statement, said, “Such shows are not part of the city’s culture. This will create a major disturbance for residents of the area. The event will also cause traffic jams. Hence, I have urged the city police commissioner to cancel the programme.”
Diljit’s condition for alcohol ban
Punjabi music sensation Diljit Dosanjh says he will stop singing alcohol-themed songs if all the ‘thekas’ (liquor shops) in the country are shut down.
At his show in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the singer-actor responded to the notice sent to him ahead of his Hyderabad concert directing him to avoid songs related to alcohol, drugs and violence.
Diljit tweaked the words in his chartbusters “Lemonade” and “5 Taara” — which originally mention ‘daaru’ (alcohol) and ‘theka’ (liquor store) in their lyrics — after he received a notice from the Telangana government ahead of the Hyderabad concert of his “Dil-Luminati India Tour 2024 Tour” on Saturday.
Taking a swipe at the notice, the singer at his Sunday’s show told the Ahmedabad audience: “There’s some good news. I didn’t get any notice today. There’s more good news: I’ll not sing a single song on alcohol today either. Ask me why? Because Gujarat is a dry state.”
The singer said he was a teetotaler and was even willing to take a pledge to not make such songs but the governments of each state should declare themselves dry states.
“Let’s do something, let’s start a movement. If all states declare themselves dry states, I’ll stop singing songs on alcohol from the very next day… I will stop singing about alcohol, you shut the ‘thekas’ in the country… I take a pledge.
“Is this possible? It’s a big source of revenue. Everything was shut in corona (pandemic), except the thekas. You can’t fool the youth,” he can be seen saying in a video shared on Diljit’s official Instagram page.
The 40-year-old also had a word of caution for his naysayers: “Don’t mess with me.”
