Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Government has
reversed its decision to revive the daily draws of the
state-run lottery, apparently to strengthen its legal grounds
in its battle against the out-of-state lotteries siphonining
off huge amounts from the state.
According to government sources, Chief Minister
V S Achuthanandan today directed the Finance Department to
instruct the Lottery authorities to stop printing of the
tickets for the daily draws, planned to be rsumed from the
first week of December.
On Sunday, Achuthanandan himself had given nod to the
the proposal for resumption of the daily draws, considering
the mounting pressure from thousands of vendors who eked out a
living by selling tickets.
The daily lottery was suspended a couple of months back to
reinforce the government`s lagal standing in its fight against
the out-side-state lotteries, whose operations allegedly
involved irregularities besides siphoning off huge amount from
the state without any gurantee to the buyers regarding their
proper running.
The Kerala High Court had also made observations against the
legality on the part of the state government of running its
own daily draws while it was demanding restrictions on the
sale of outside state lotteries.
With the lottery issue turning into a hot topic of political
wranglings between the ruling LDF and the Opposition UDF, the
government limited the draws of the state run lottery to
once-a-week.
The UDF had unleashed a fierce attack on the government in
the assembly and outside accusing it of collusion with lottery
tycoons who fattened by absorbing money from common man by
selling tickets of outside lotteries without any guarantee of
their authenticity.
The Government, on the other hand, hit back at the UDF saying
the Centre alone had powers to curb the outside lotteries and
the UPA Government was unwilling to take action against big
distributors.
PTI
