Opposition should fight against the liquor menace in Tamil Nadu: Cong

Madurai: Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President Gnanadesikan on Thursday exhorted all opposition parties in the state to unite and fight against the liquor menace which had almost ruined youngsters and several families. [caption id=“attachment_1697513” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] Talking to newsmen here he claimed the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) liquor shops were the root cause of various law and order problems in the state. Almost all the opposition parties in the state including the BJP, PMK, MDMK and DMDK were against the liquor shops, he added. “It is time that all the opposition parties, forgetting their political affiliation, join hands and launch a struggle against the liquor shops. I am willing to write to them to join the struggle against the liquor” he said. While the state government was giving freebies by earning Rs 24,000 crore from liquor shops they do not do any good to the state except ruining families, Gnanadesikan said. Denying that he was not criticising the AIADMK government which had crossed three years and was only critical of the 100-day old BJP government, the TNCC Chief said he had been criticising the Tamil Nadu government on various issues and the deteriorating law and order issue in particular. Gnanadesikan declined to comment on former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s reported statement that TNCC needed a popular figure. But he said Chidambaram’s statement that more than 50 percent of the party’s district committees did not have a proper set-up was wrong. All the districts, except a few, had proper committees and all the committee had been working. In One district papers for the committee set up were ready but a senior Congress leader was not accepting it, he said. He clarified that though the Congress had collectively decided not to contest for the post of Mayor and Chairman of municipalities, the district units had been given freedom to contest at the ward level. PTI