KAKINADA: YSR Congress chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy promised to enforce total prohibition in Andhra Pradesh once he came to power.
He made this promise here on Wednesday when participating in an interactive programme with students in Vidyardhi Yuvabheri on the ‘special status issue’, organised by Students of East Godavari District of YSRC.
A first year student of Samhitha College, R. Sravan Rajahmundry, told Jagan that many people had died consuming liquor and their families had been badly affected. Jagan blamed Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu who had made a promise during the elections to reduce liquor shops and belt shops in the state.
But now he had retracted on the promise by giving permission in every village, auctioning for shops and running them with police protection.
“I assured you I will come to power in the next two or three years. I will impose total prohibition of liquor in the state. Only the rich will have access to it as they can spend money on treatment for liquor-related diseases”.
He said that the state was beset with all sorts of problems and the chief minister was doing nothing to solve them; he was periodically visiting Singapore, Davos and other countries.
“Chandrababu Naidu need not go to other countries. He should go to New Delhi to get special status for the state. All the countries will make a beeline then to set up industries here,” Jagan said.
He called upon the students to confront the chief minister with these facts whenever he visited the region, expressing his anger at the CM not having cared about students even a year and a half after assuming power and not issuing any notification from the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission for recruitments. In his view, the CM had no recruitment calendar, but was removing entire jobs.
