A history of sort was created on Saturday when more than two crore people came out on the busy roads and streets to form world’s longest human chain against alcohol consumption. What was significant people from all walks of life, age-groups, sex, and profession participated in the biggest-ever campaign and stood firmly in queues for about an hour, shedding inhibition, personal egos and busy day schedule for a social cause.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who is the man behind this idea himself joined one such queue at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan along with RJD chief Lalu Prasad and others to be a part of the historic event. Almost the entire government, ministers, legislators, leaders and foot soldiers joined the human chain at the designated places to make it a grand success. The opposition parties except for former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha too showed rare kind of eagerness to participate in the event.

But, a major support came from unexpected quarters—the sex workers. Around 2,000 sex workers from Muzaffarpur’s Chaturbhujsthan, known as India’s one of the biggest red light district, also took to streets with their faces uncovered and joined hands together as a show of solidarity to the government’s campaign against drinking although this particular area was not marked for human chain route. Quite many had come dancing on the beats of drumsal.

The CM thanked the masses for lending their support and be a guiding force for social change. “By marking their huge presence, the masses have delivered a very strong message against alcoholism and addiction,” Mr Kumar who reached the venue well ahead of time to kick off the programme. The 11,292 km-long human chain spread across all 38 districts of Bihar remained in force for full 45 minutes to allow three ISRO satellites, four trainer aircrafts, helicopters and 40 drone cameras to properly shoot the entire event and present a strong proof of people’s support for prohibition which the state imposed in April last year.

However, a major chunk of support came from schoolchildren from over 70,000 schools. Led by their principals, they took hurriedly took positions on the designated routes and joined hands to give a boost to the entire campaign. In fact, the education department was the organizer of the programme.

Further, chief minister Kumar himself toiled hard to ensure the programme turns out to be a grand success. For the past two months, he had been on the extensive tours of the state, covering each single district. Although the tour or “nischaya yatra” was officially aimed at taking a look at the development works in the state, the CM went on making fervent appeals to the masses to join the human chain against alcoholism. Much to his satisfaction, the masses supported him.