Vijayawada: Breaking silence on the alleged liquor scandal, former chief minister and YSRCP supremo YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said that the liquor scam is a sham in which charges are fabricated only to nullify and weaken the liquor case in which chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu is on bail. He gave a call to people to observe betrayal day on June 4 to expose the failures of the NDA govt. Speaking to media here on Thursday, Jagan said that govt has been harassing officials in a vindictive manner following their arrests, and taking statements and confessions. The statements of former beverages corporation MD, Vasudev Reddy, who was desperate to go back to his home department, and the rouge MP (referring to Vijaysai Reddy) who vacated the seat to benefit the coalition, will not have any value.Jagan charged that there is documentary evidence on the liquor scam case in which CM Naidu is on bail and has been violating every norm of the bail. The arrest of small employees and people who have no concern with the beverages corporation only shows that govt wants to weaken and nullify the case registered against Naidu. He said that Vasudev Reddy had moved court earlier as govt was harassing him. Raj Kasireddy did not yield to govt pressure, which is why his name was included in the case, and he is the business partner of Vijayawada TDP MP Kesineni Chinni. The Delhi liquor scam case is all about the govt there shifting liquor deals from public sector to private sector and what they have done, was the opposite. “Naidu, on the other hand, has encouraged private players in his previous term. His fraud has been to rig the tenders for allocating liquor shops and increasing the commission after the allotment without prior approval of the cabinet. Naidu is trying to nullify his case by arresting people like Dhanunjay Reddy, Krishnamohan Reddy, and Balaji Govindappa, a director of a group of companies of international repute.This will have an adverse impact on investors,” said Jagan. He fumed that Naidu was the real scamster who rigged the lottery to favour his own syndicate of private mafia and gave 69% of orders to only five of his favoured distilleries, increased the capacity and waived privilege fees causing a loss to the exchequer 5 crore, and his involvement is on paper, which makes the case strong.Jagan explained that they have increased more taxes on liquor, leading to dip in the liquor sales during YSRCP regime. He said that sales have gone up many folds in the private sector during Naidu’s regime. “There is an undeclared emergency going on in the State only to divert the public attention from govt failures. Naidu and his men spread lies on state finances during YSRC govt. However, the CAG and other reports clearly showed the truth that we managed the finances better as purchasing power and growth rate were better during our term,” claimed Jagan.The former chief minister also said that CM Naidu has been going for heavy borrowings and pouring all the money into Amaravati, with escalated costs and inflated tenders to benefit his own contractors. Despite declaring Amaravati a self-financed project, he has been taking huge amount of loans from multiple agencies and has been giving mobilisation advance for kickbacks, he charged. “PPAs are being signed at 4.6 per unit for 25 years and the scam runs into 11,000 crore. An unconstitutional method was adopted in issuing APMDC bonds to raise 9,000 crore by allowing private parties to have access to consolidated fund,” said Jagan.
