BJP president and union health minister JP Nadda has called the Tamil Nadu hooch tragedy a “man-made disaster” and alleged that the “deep nexus between the ruling DMK-INDI ALLIANCE dispensation and illicit liquor mafia” was responsible for the deaths and called the deaths “state-sponsored murder.”
In a letter to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, he said the accident in Kallakurichi has shaken the conscience of the entire nation. “The ghastly images of burning funeral pyres, from Karunapuram village in Kallakurichi, Tamil Nadu, in the aftermath of Tamil Nadu’s worst ever spurious liquor consumption tragedy, that has left 58 dead until now and almost 160 persons hospitalized, has shaken the conscience of the entire nation,” he added.
He said when 23 people died in Villupuram and Chengalpattu after consuming spurious alcohol in May 2023, the BJP had cautioned the ruling DMK-INDI Alliance government of complicity and nexus between their functionaries and the illicit liquor mafia, but no attention was paid to the warnings.
Nadda reminded Kharge that the Congress that the party’s manifesto for the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu had a detailed plan for liquor prohibition in the state. But, he lamented, “ironically, your DMK-INDI Alliance government is now the biggest patroniser of illicit spurious liquor trade that has claimed hundreds of lives whenever you are in power.”
Accusing the state government of cover-up, Nadda lamented that.media and investigative reports so far have made it clear as to how this business of illicit liquor was functioning with impunity, right in the open and during broad daylight, obviously with patronage from the state and police.
When the disaster struck, instead of immediately taking accountability and saving lives, he deplored that the state administration was busy in trying to cover up.
“There are documented accounts about how one of the main accused was let off by the police just a few days ago, perhaps because of his political patronage and corruption in the law and order system, of which there is proof too”, he added.
In light of these incontrovertible facts coming to the public domain, Nadda asked Kharge that can this be termed as anything other than a ‘state-sponsored murder ?Nadda alleged that the M.K. The Stalin-led government continues to block a free and fair independent probe by opposing a CBI investigation.
