YSRCP cheap liquor ruining the poor, alleges TDP

Mangalagiri: TDP official spokesman Saptagiri Prasad on Thursday accused the ruling YSRCP leaders of smuggling and selling cheap liquor brands only to make easy money at the cost of health of the thousands and lakhs of poor families in the state.

Prasad asked whether the Chief Minister would be able to clarify to the poor women on the status of implementation of his Padayatra promise of 'phased prohibition'. Many poor persons were dying after drinking harmful cheap liquor brands and country-made arrack that were flowing everywhere. Jagan Mohan Reddy promised prohibition to poor women but now he opened the floodgates of liquor to crush their lives.

Addressing a press conference here, the TDP leader said that the double standards of Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy were exposed when his government issued GO No 57. Big rewards and greater bonuses were promised to the salesmen at the government liquor shops if they rendered satisfactory service in getting more revenue. He asked whether the ruling party not ashamed of passing such arbitrary GOs and said it was totally against the promise of phased implementation of total prohibition.

Prasad termed it as the height of hypocrisy on the part of the YSRCP government to levy 20 per cent additional tax on bars and restaurants to use this revenue for the welfare programmes. This was enough to say to what low levels that the Chief Minister was stooping. The TDP leader asserted that while Chandrababu Naidu brought jobs, Jagan Mohan Reddy was just bringing deadly cheap liquor brands. The YSRCP's own companies were bringing their own harmful liquor brands, which could not be found even in Google search. The Chief Minister was deriving sadistic pleasure by naming his own liquor brands as 'Pension 3,000', 'Special Status', 'Railway Zone', etc., He has failed to fulfil all these promises but made available these liquor brands to destroy poor families without any mercy.

Condemning the government's 'attitude', the TDP leader said that excise minister K Narayana Swamy was failing to take any action when his own Chittoor district has turned into a hub of liquor smuggling from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The Chief Minister and his partymen were getting Rs 25,000 crore commissions from the cheap liquor companies in the state, he alleged.