No scam, only sham, claims Jagan

Tadepalli: Turning the tables on coalition government, former Chief Minister and YSRCP president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said the liquor scam is a sham in which charges are fabricated only to nullify and weaken the liquor case in which CM N Chandrababu Naidu is on bail and the irregularities being now carried out by him. “June 4 will be observed as ‘Betrayal Day’ to expose the failures of the government.”

Speaking to the media at party headquarters here on Thursday, Jagan said the government has arrested and has been harassing officials in a vindictive manner and taking statements and confessions.

Jagan said, “The statements of Vasudeva Reddy, who was desperate to go back to his home department or the rogue MP (Vijaysai Reddy), who vacated the seat to benefit the coalition, will not cut any ice. Raj Kasireddy did not yield to the government pressure, which is why his name was included in the case and he is the business partner of Vijayawada TDP MP.”

He further said that the Delhi liquor scam case is all about the government there shifting liquor deals from public sector to private sector and what we have done was the opposite. ‘He is trying to nullify his case by arresting people like Dhanunjay Reddy, Krishnamohan Reddy and Balaji Govindappa.’

The former CM criticised that Chandrababu Naidu has given major chunk of orders to five of his favoured distilleries and encouraged the syndicate system in placing indent and in sales as well while the liquor trade was done in a transparent manner in our term.

‘Chandrababu is the real scamster, who rigged the lottery to favour his own syndicate of private mafia and gave 69 per cent of orders to only five of his favoured distilleries.’

Jagan pointed out that people are being arrested at will with false cases and even high ranking police officers are arrested. Chandrababu Naidu and his friendly media has been spreading lies on State finances during our term, but the CAG and other reports are in the open, which clearly speak the truth that we managed the finances better, he explained.

The YSRCP chief said that Naidu has been going for heavy borrowings and pouring all the money into Amaravati. ‘Despite declaring Amaravati is a self- financed project, he has been taking huge amount of loans from multiple agencies and has been giving mobilisation advance for kickbacks. Corruption has been rampant with PPAs being signed at Rs 4.60 per unit for 25 years and the scam runs into Rs 11,000 crore. An unconstitutional method was adopted in issuing NMDC bonds to raise Rs 9,000 crore by allowing private parties to have access to Consolidated Fund’, he stated.