Liquor Scam Is Political Vendetta: Narayanaswamy

“At 76, with failing health, I stepped aside from electoral politics last year. Yet Chandrababu continues to target me with fabricated cases. SIT officials themselves found nothing, but the yellow media spun tales of laptops seized, cash counted, and arrests made. I never even used a laptop—how could one be seized from me?” he asked. Narayanaswamy defended the YSRCP government’s liquor policy, claiming it was implemented with “utmost transparency” through state-run shops, reduced operating hours, closure of 43,000 belt shops, and a freeze on new distillery licenses.

As a result, he said, liquor consumption declined even as state revenues rose from `17,341 crore in 2018–19 under TDP to ` 25,082 crore in 2023–24. “If sales fell but revenues rose due to taxation, where is the scope for scams?” he asked. Turning his attack on Naidu, Narayanaswamy accused Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu of presiding over the “real liquor mafia,” citing proliferation of private outlets, permit rooms, and belt shops, selective favors to distilleries, and scrapping of privilege fees, which he claimed caused a ` 5,000 crore loss to the state. “Today’s coalition government has turned liquor sales into mafia-run loot. From dawn to dawn, liquor is sold illegally, over MRP, and even door-delivered. This is the biggest scam ever. And to cover it up, Chandrababu manufactures lies against us,” he said.