'Pursue Rahul, Priyanka to...': JP Nadda asks Mallikarjun Kharge to 'join' protest on Kallkurichi hooch tragedy

Kallakurichi hooch tragedy: Expressing concern over the tragic loss of lives in the spurious liquor tragedy, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President and Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Monday wrote a letter to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. Calling the hooch tragedy a “state-sponsored murder", JP Nadda urged Mallikarjun Kharge to pursue Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to join the protest against the incident.

Targeting the Congress for its ‘defeaning, hypocritical silence’, JP Nadda urged Kharge to “pursue Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra, to either pay a visit to the victim's families or at least muster the courage to raise their voices on this issue."

“I invite you to join our leaders for a black band protest against this ‘state-sponsored disaster’ in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the Prerna Sthal within Parliament precincts," wrote JP Nadda in his letter to Kharge.

Multiple lives would have been saved in the “man-made disaster" of Kallakurichi tragedy if the ‘DMK-INDIA nexus’ and illicit liquor mafia did not exist, JP Nadda wrote in the letter to Mallikarjun Kharge. He also talked about a previous incident when 23 people lost their lives after consuming illicit liquor in Tamil Nadu in May this year. He also said that the BJP had cautioned the DMK government of the illicit liquor mafia in the state. However, no attention was paid to their warnings.

Mentioning the heavy influence of illicit liquor mafias in the state, JP Nadda said that such businesses were "functioning with impunity, right in the open during broad daylight, with patronage from state and police'.

The state administration's efforts to control the damage caused after the hooch tragedy by covering up the incident proved fatal and