HYDERABAD: After the assembly, it was turn of legislative council to witness uproarious scenes on liquor syndicates, when the subject came up for discussion on Wednesday.For quite a long time, there were arguments and counter-arguments between members of Congress and the TDP. When the debate was not going anywhere, council deputy chairman, N Vidya Sagar, adjourned the House till Thursday.After question hour, the TDP floor leader, D Veerabhadra Rao raised the liquor syndicate issue and asked the government as to why they were not taking action against excise minister, Mopidevi Venkata Ramana. At this stage, the Congress party MLCs obstructed Veerabhadra Rao’s speech a number of times.Later, TDP MLC, Y Babu Rajendra Prasad demanded excise minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana’s arrest for accepting bribe from liquor syndicate organiser, Venkata Ramana.Y Babu Rajendra Prasad asked the government if liquor syndicate accused Ramana’s allegation, against the excise minister, was false then why was the government taking action against officials based on testimony of the same accused, N Ramana. He demanded the government release the arrested officials if they are not going to act fully according to statement of the accused.Y Babu Rajendra Prasad also made severe comments against the government saying that that Brandy-raj was going on in the state. He asked the government as to whether we were inheritors of Mahatma’s legacy or Brandy legacy. At this stage ministers, Kanna Laxminarayana and others severely opposed Babu Rajendra Prasad’s remarks and took strong objection over his stance.But continuing his speech, Babu Rajendra Prasad told the government that “we should go to the masses together and debate on the liquor issue.”Babu Rajendra Prasad demanded that the government reply to comments made by its minister, D L Ravindra Reddy. Reddy had earlier commented that some important heads in the government are making excise minister a scape goat in the liquor scam.Minister Kanna Laxminarayana intervened and alleged that during the TDP regime the MPs and MLAs were involved in illegal liquor selling. The minister once again made it clear that just based on the accused’s statement, the government cannot take action against the excise minister. He also clarified that action has been initiated against some officials who had invested money in liquor business and also said that investigations were going on.Tourism minister, Vatti Vasantha Kumar said the ACB remand report is only four pages, not seven pages and there is no question of the missing page seven. He also said that the confessional report was 12 pages.The Peoples’ Democratic Front members, Bala Subramanyam, Srinivas Naidu and 3 others walked out from the meet, while the liquor debate was on. They said many other important issues were there to discuss, but the ruling and opposition members were wasting valuable time by bringing up the liquor issue for discussion.
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