As Ex-Minister Jogi Ramesh Arrested In Liquor Scam, YSRCP Says Govt ‘Deflecting From Its Failures’

Visakhapatnam: Senior YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader and former Andhra Pradesh minister Jogi Ramesh was arrested Sunday (November 2) in a dramatic development in the state's spurious liquor scandal, an action his party immediately condemned as a “desperate diversion tactic” by the ruling government.

A special investigation team (SIT) from the excise department took Ramesh, 58, a close confidant of YSRCP chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, into custody at around 8 am at his residence in Ibrahimpatnam near Vijayawada. His brother and an aide, Arepalli Ramu, were also detained.

The arrest hinges on a video confession by the case's prime accused, Addepalli Janardhan Rao, who allegedly identified Ramesh as the “key financier and mastermind” behind the alleged multi-district illegal liquor network.

According to SIT sources speaking to South First, Rao claimed the former minister had promised to invest Rs 3 crore to cover losses and had discussed expanding the operation to African markets.

Officials state the racket, which allegedly thrived under political protection, posed a grave threat to public health and caused substantial revenue losses to the state.

The investigation gained momentum after raids in Chittoor and Krishna districts uncovered over 10,000 litres of adulterated liquor.

However, the YSRCP launched a furious counter-attack, framing Ramesh's arrest as a politically motivated move to deflect public anger from the government's recent failings.

“The arrest of Jogi Ramesh is nothing but an attempt to shift attention from the Kasibugga stampede tragedy,” YSRCP political action committee member P. Anil Kumar Yadav told The Wire.

He accused the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)-led ruling coalition of using arrests to silence criticism over its handling of the temple disaster, which killed nine devotees, and its alleged failure to support farmers devastated by Cyclone Montha.

Chelluboina Venu Gopalakrishna, another former minister, told The Wire that the government was “shielding TDP leaders” actually caught in the liquor operations, including Mulakalacheruvu TDP in-charge Jayachandra Reddy.

“Instead of arresting those guilty, the government is targeting BC leaders,” he said, referencing Ramesh's position as a leader from the backward classes community.

The YSRCP leaders argued that Ramesh had publicly proclaimed his innocence, sworn an oath at the Durga temple in Vijayawada, offered to take a lie-detector test and challenged the government to prove its case.

Significantly, the arrest occurred just one day after Ramesh filed a petition in the Andhra Pradesh high court seeking a CBI inquiry, calling the SIT probe a “witch-hunt engineered by the NDA government to stifle dissent”.

Ramesh is expected to be produced before a magistrate, where investigators will likely seek his remand. The case has been booked under multiple sections of the Andhra Pradesh Excise Act as well as provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita including criminal conspiracy and cheating.

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