PATNA, April 8 -- As the time approaches for the transition of power in Bihar to install the first-ever chief minister from the BJP, there is as much speculation in the state about the new incumbent to succeed Nitish Kumar as there is about the fate of the prohibition law which bans the manufacture, sale, and consumption of all alcohol. The total prohibition was implemented in Bihar in April 2016, through a unanimous Assembly resolution brought by the then ruling Grand Alliance government led by Nitish Kumar comprising JD(U), RJD, Congress, Left and others and the BJP also backed it. Later, due to unbridled smuggling and demand for easing severe punishments that hurt the poor, the provisions were tweaked a couple of times to shift the focus more on smugglers than consumers. On Monday, Tejashwi said in a long social media post that while prohibition had completed 10 years, it has utterly failed due to the nexus of government/administration and the liquor mafia. His post came in the wake of hooch tragedy in Champaran, in which nine lives were lost, many lost eyesight and the masterminds surrendered under police pressure. "Prohibition has proven to be Nitish Kumar's biggest institutional corruption. As a result, Bihar has seen the rise of an illegal parallel economy worth Rs.40,000 crore. The Home and Excise Prohibition Department, responsible for overseeing the implementation of the prohibition law, has mostly remained with the CM," he added. Dishing out statistics, Tejashwi said that so far Bihar has registered 1.1 million cases under the law and arrested over 1.6 million mostly poor people, while over 50 million liters of liquor have been seized. "In 2004-05, Bihar had fewer than 500 liquor shops in rural Bihar and 3,000 overall, which increased to 6,000 by 2014-15 and then came prohibition, which has been reduced to a joke," he added. Tejashwi said that the average consumption of liquor in the state is 170,000 litres/day, which is much higher than the seizure figure of 11,000 liters/day. Besides, there has been 40% increase in the consumption of dry intoxicants and narcotics," he added. The JD(U) has been quick to hit back at Tejashwi's "failure of prohibition" charge. "Tejashwi is not talking of review or suggestions for the implementation of prohibition, but he is raising a question mark on the law. He should treat his family as a unit and also his legislators and their family members to get signature on the plea that prohibition is wrong and should end," said JD(U) national spokesman Neeraj Kumar on Tuesday. The JD(U) spokesman also dared Tejashwi to share the details of "Rs.46.64-cr taken though electoral bonds from liquor companies during election" on social media to prove his point. BJP spokesman Neeraj Kumar also took on Tejashwi, saying that his post clearly reflected that he was against prohibition. Meanwhile, another RJD leader, Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, had also raised the issue of growing scourge of dry intoxicants in the state of Bihar post prohibition in Parliament last week and sought to know the steps being taken by the state government. RJD's coordinated attack on prohibition has come at a time when there are growing speculations that prohibition might completely go or be tweaked to make availability regulated, easing at least some financial burden by augmenting internal resources, besides easing the pressure on police, which is often accused of being hand in glove with the mafia. Many NDA allies have also questioned the efficacy of prohibition due to continued smuggling and the growing proclivity of youth towards narcotics, which is reflected through the growing number of private de-addiction centres in and around Patna. The courts have also been critical of the mounting cases in this regard. "It is a fact that total prohibition in the state was implemented with the good intent of Nitish Kumar, but once he is not there it might be further relaxed or done away with. Relaxation was done in the past also. After all the freebies announced, a resource-starved state will need to augment its internal resources, which cannot be achieved merely by unpopular methods of hiking taxes, registration rates or power tariff," said social analyst NK Choudhary....