india

Updated: Dec 10, 2019 21:35 IST

YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday accused the Telugu Desam Party of playing “politics over corpses” after a man died allegedly standing in a queue to buy onions.

The chief minister was referring to the death of a 60-year-old man Sambi Reddy at Rythu Bazar (farmer’s market) in Gudivada town on Monday.

Quoting media reports, TDP president and leader of opposition N Chandrababu Naidu alleged that the inept handling of onion supply had led to the death of Sambi Reddy while standing in queue for more than two hours to purchase onions.

Countering Naidu’s criticism, the YSRCP presented a video clipping of the statements of the son and brother-in-law of the deceased, who claimed that Sambi Reddy had gone to the Rythu Bazar not to buy onions but only fresh vegetables.

“I request the political parties not to try to gain political mileage out of personal grief,” Sambi Reddy’s son Mallikarjuna Reddy said.

He said his father, who had been working as a conductor in Road Transport Corporation (RTC), had taken voluntary retirement a few years ago after he suffered a heart attack. Since then, he has been doing a small-time business in Gudivada. “He went to the temple in the morning and on his way, he went to Rythu Bazar to fetch vegetables, where he collapsed due to heart attack,” Reddy explained.

Jagan said the TDP was trying to politicise issue for its advantage. “Naidu, whose family concern Heritage Foods is selling onions at Rs 200 a kg, is shedding crocodile tears on the onion crisis. He is not leaving even dead bodies to play politics,” he criticised.

The chief minister said Andhra Pradesh was the only state in the country that was supplying onions at a subsidised rate of Rs 25 per kg through market intervention scheme. “The fact that there are long queues at Rythu Bazars itself is an indication of the supply of onions at subsidised rates,” he pointed out.