Ramesh launched a sharp counter-offensive against Naidu, accusing him of fabricating stories and misusing the SIT to implicate innocent individuals in the case.
Published Oct 14, 2025 | 11:43 AM ⚊ Updated Oct 14, 2025 | 11:43 AM
YSRCP leader Jogi Ramesh.
Synopsis: Former Andhra Pradesh minister and YSRCP leader Jogi Ramesh offered to undergo a lie detector test to prove his innocence in the alleged spurious liquor scam and challenged Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh to do the same. The former minister alleged that the government coerced Janardhan Rao, a key accused currently under remand, into recording a false video implicating him.
Former Andhra Pradesh minister and YSRCP leader Jogi Ramesh offered to undergo a lie detector test to prove his innocence in the alleged spurious liquor scam, while challenging Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh to do the same if they dare to face the truth.
Ramesh launched a sharp counter-offensive against Naidu, accusing him of fabricating stories and misusing the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to implicate innocent individuals in the case.
Speaking to the media in Vijayawada on Wednesday, 13 October, he emphatically denied any connection to the spurious liquor racket, stating: “If Chandrababu Naidu can prove even a single link between me and this case, I am ready to accept any punishment.”
He further volunteered to take an oath before Lord Venkateswara with his family or undergo a lie detector test, and extended the challenge to Naidu to participate alongside his own family.
The former minister alleged that the government coerced Janardhan Rao, a key accused currently under remand, into recording a false video implicating him. “The remand report does not mention my name anywhere, yet they are trying to use his video to spread lies,” Ramesh claimed, adding that Janardhan’s wife and children were harassed to force him to name YSRCP leaders.
He accused Naidu of orchestrating the SIT probe as a “political drama” to divert attention from his own exposures, warning that “filing false cases gives temporary satisfaction, but truth will catch up.”
Ramesh asserted he is unafraid of illegal cases and will not flee, daring Naidu or Lokesh to confront him directly.
“I am ready to take a truth test anywhere, even before Goddess Kanaka Durga in Vijayawada,” he said, emphasising that the YSRCP and the public would expose the alleged lies behind the liquor case and Naidu’s “Red Book” politics.
The controversy arose from a viral video where Janardhan Rao accused Ramesh of masterminding the fake liquor operation to tarnish the TDP-led government. Janardhan Rao claimed Ramesh instructed him to manufacture spurious liquor, initially during the YSRCP regime and later to defame the new NDA alliance government after it came to power.
On the same day, the YSRCP mounted a statewide agitation, protesting at Excise Department offices in all constituencies to demand justice for victims of the alleged fake liquor mafia operating under the TDP-led alliance’s protection.
Following a call from party president and former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, YSRCP leaders submitted petitions to Prohibition and Excise officials, calling for strict action against those responsible.
YSRCP leaders branded the SIT investigation a “sham” controlled from the TDP office, insisting that only a CBI probe could uncover the masterminds. The party demanded statewide raids on wine shops, bars, belt shops, and permit rooms; arrests of mafia kingpins; support for victims’ families; cancellation of illegal shop allocations; closure of liquor outlets near schools and temples; and restoration of government-run liquor shops.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
