Vijayawada: A senior citizen collapsed at the Rythu Bazaar in Gudivada after standing in the long queue for two hours. He died while he was being taken to the hospital. The long queues were caused due to the sale of onions at a subsidised price.
The retired APSRTC employee, Nune Sambi Reddy, 62, was a resident of Eluru road in Gudivada, Krishna district. He had queued up together with thousands of people who had come to the Rythu Bazaar with their Aadhaar cards from 6 am to buy onions at a subsidised rate since the market price is unaffordable.
Since the younger members of the family have to go to work, it was mostly the elderly who stood in the queue on Monday. The stock arrived late and the staff in the bazaar was inadequate, which caused the delay. Some people stood in the queue for three hours.
The irony is that Sambi Reddy had gone to the bazaar to buy a variety of vegetables and not onions.
His brother-in-law M.V. Narayana Reddy told Deccan Chronicle that Sambi Reddy did not stand in queue as he was suffering from paralysis for the past few months. Nor did he have to buy subsidised onions as he had the ability to buy onions in the retail market.
The wrong version of what happened appeared on social media and also on other media, and Opposition politicians projected that he died when he was in the queue to buy subsidised onions.
