Patna: A group of women from India’s Bihar state have named their newborn babies after chief minister Nitish Kumar.

The children were born on January 21, the day the state government organised a human chain against alcoholism.

All the women who delivered the babies were admitted at the Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Muzaffarpur, a north Bihar town located some 80km from Patna.

The women said they were impressed by the resolve with which the Bihar chief minister had imposed a liquor prohibition in the state, and hoped their children would grow up to take bold decisions and eliminate social vices in a similar manner.

“We are immensely impressed by the decision of the Bihar chief minister to ban liquor consumption in the state, and hence have named our children after him as a show of solidarity,” said Beauty Devi, one of nine women who delivered baby boys at the hospital as Bihar set a record for the world’s longest human chain against alcoholism.

Another woman, Rekha Devi, said the chief minister had done a great service to society by banning liquor, as he had saved the next generation.

“Earlier, [families’] hard-earned money was being wasted on the purchase of alcohol but, post the liquor ban, the saved money is being used to buy fresh vegetables and nutritious foods,” she added.

“Nine of the 12 women admitted at the hospital delivered baby boys on Saturday. All of them had decided in advance to name their sons after chief minister Nitish Kumar and kept their promise after birth of babies,” hospital’s deputy superintendent Dr Sunil Shahi told the media today.

Bihar formed the world’s longest human chain against alcoholism at the weekend after more than 30 million people from all walks of life, age groups and professions joined hands on the streets to show their solidarity against the government’s resolve, officials said.

The participants who included schoolchildren, college students, teachers, leaders, officials and ordinary citizens, stood in more than 11,000km-long queues for about an hour, taking time off from their busy schedule.

Bihar chief minister Kumar, who was the man behind the whole idea, himself stood in a queue for about an hour, joining hands together with other participants, to lead the campaign.

“I thank the masses for the huge support to this campaign against alcoholism. The support has laid the foundation of a great social change in Bihar,” the chief minister said in his message, urging them to display similar unity in future as well.

The 11,292km-long human spread across all 38 districts of Bihar was filmed by three Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) satellites, four trainer aircraft, choppers and 40 drone cameras. A team of Isro scientists had reached Patna well in advance to plan and shot the entire event.

The previous world record for the longest human chain involving five million people was held by Bangladesh.

It was formed on 11 December, 2004 along a 1,050-kilometre route from Teknaf to Tentulia.

Almost all political parties except for former Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha and parliamentarian Pappu Yadav’s jan Adhukar Party (JAP) lent support to the human chain programme of the Bihar state government.

Bihar has already imposed total prohibition in April last year and announced to shut down all the 21 alcohol factories from next fiscal as a commitment to save the next generation from the ill-effects of alcohol.