Vijay Mallya, the Indian drinks baron, has urged the industrial state of Gujarat to abandon its decades-old prohibition on alcohol after at least 122 people died and more than 300 needed hospital treatment last week from drinking a highly toxic batch of illegal liquor.

Gujarat, the birthplace of revered independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, has banned alcohol ­consumption since 1961 in homage to Gandhi who, along with leading the struggle against British colonial rule, was a teetotaller who saw alcohol as a social evil.