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.
View this post on Instagram
The department canceled the permit after receiving objections from various parties, including Chandrakant Patil, the newly elected BJP MLA from Kothrud, who opposed the plan to serve liquor at the event.
State Excise Commissioner C. Rajput announced, “The state excise department has withdrawn the permission to serve liquor at the event.”
MLA Patil raised concerns about the concert scheduled at Kakade Farm in Kothrud later in the evening.
In his statement, the BJP leader argued, “These types of events do not align with the city’s culture. They will cause major disruptions for local residents and result in traffic congestion. As a result, I have urged the city police commissioner to cancel the event.”
Punjabi music star Diljit Dosanjh has claimed that he will stop performing alcohol-themed songs if all the liquor stores, or ‘thekas,’ across 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.
View this post on Instagram
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.
