Nani Blames TDP for huge rush at wines shops

After 40 days of lockdown implemented to check the spread of coronavirus, sale of liquor has been allowed across the Andhra Pradesh state from Monday. Every retail outlet witnessed serpentine queues since the early hours of the day. Braving the scorching sun, tipplers stood for a long time to buy the bottles even when the prices were hiked by as much as 75 per cent.

The reopening of liquor shops drew criticism from various quarters. Health experts took objection to sale of liquor during the Covid-19 threat as customers at the shops ignored the social distancing norm and jostled for space.

Minister for I&PR and transport Perni Venkatramaiah (Perni Nani), on Wednesday, alleged that Opposition leader and Telugu Desam supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu resorted to cheap politics when the state government began sale of liquor through the state-owned retail outlets.

The minister charged Naidu with giving money to the TDP functionaries, sympathisers and asking them to stand in the queues at the liquor outlets and even directing them not to wear masks, gather at the liquor stores in large numbers, ignoring the social distance protocol. “In some places, the TDP men even jostled with each other at the liquor shops even when there was the threat of coronavirus spreading through contact. It was TDP’s ploy to tarnish the image of the YSRC government. The TDP is only interested in playing cheap tricks but not in playing the role of an opposition that can think constructively.”

Further, the minister alleged that Naidu did all this following the advice of his coterie without giving a second thought and this is deporable. “Such cheap politics are detestable.”