Smita Patil, daughter of Maharashtra's ex-deputy chief minister RR Patil, called the Supreme Court's order unfortunate and a black blot on a progressive state such as Maharashtra. The late RR Patil had announced a ban on dance bars in 2005 while responding to the 'Point of Order' motion of Panvel legislator Vivek Patil on the floor of the legislative assembly. Vivek echoed Smita's sentiments.
"My father's decision was in response to many instances such as that of a boy from Panvel who killed his mother, sold her jewellery and spent that money in dance bars," said the NCP leader. "Then there were those who borrowed from money lenders, blew it away in dance bars and committed suicide when they couldn't repay the debts.
The crime rate had grown by 40 per cent, as against the past years. All the parties had supported the decision."
Smita added that as a citizen of Maharashtra, she feels the government should make a separate law banning dance bars. "It is shameful that in a progressive state such as ours, someone is profiteering by making women dance," she adds.
She blamed the government's lax attitude in fighting the case for the ban being lifted.
The then Panvel MLA, who had originally pressed for the ban, added that "The government appointed advocate was not even present at the last hearing in Supreme Court."
He said that dance bars generated a lot of black and unaccounted money; thus the incumbent government wanted to reopen them. "The BJP-led government is hand-in-glove with dance bars owners," said Vivek, who belongs to the Peasants and Workers party, "In fact, many BJP leaders, MLAs and corporators either own such establishments or are associated by partnership. Therefore, they deliberately left loopholes in the law, which were exposed in the top court on Thursday."
When asked about the large scale unemployment a ban would entail, Smita retorted, "The government has announced that it will create two crore jobs and deposit Rs 15 lakh in each Indian's account. Some part of that largesse can easily be used to rehabilitate the dancers. When my father had found that 70 per cent of the dancers came from Bangladesh. Why should the state government think about them?"
