Former MLA Bonda Umamaheswara Rao has said that Andhra Pradesh (AP) has become a hub for cheap liquor and drugs businesses, and that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s promise to impose total prohibition is confined to rhetoric.
Addressing the media along with State BJP chief spokesperson Lanka Dinakar and JSP’s Gade Venkateswara Rao on April 11 (Thursday), Mr. Umamaheswara Rao insisted that a large number of people either died or were suffering from chronic diseases of the kidney and liver due to consumption of cheap liquor, which the TDP-BJP-JSP combine would expose after forming the government.
Alleging that Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy personally benefited from these illegal businesses, the TDP leader reiterated that “cash has been despatched to all parts of the State in containers to lure voters.”
“It is shameless on the part of the YSRCP government to raise loans amounting to nearly ₹40,000 crore through liquor bonds,” he observed.
Mr. Dinakar said the liquor mafia earned about ₹1 lakh crore in the last five years, and that a significant chunk of it would go into suitcase companies as investments. The acceptance of only cash at liquor shops was itself a big scandal, he alleged.
Mr. Venkateswara Rao said people should make Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy pay a heavy price for reneging on his promise to implement total prohibition, and demanded that the government release a White Paper on liquor sales.
