Vijayawada: Raising the stakes by initiating a relay hunger strike demanding justice for the victims of the multi-crore AgriGold scam, in Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, the BJP is writing to the Centre requesting the CBI to investigate the AgriGold financiers' fraud case.

State BJP president Kanna Lakshmi Narayana, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, and Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narasimha Rao also did their part whilst the strike. Lakshmi Narayana said that BJP stood with the victims and he slammed the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for denying justice to them by delaying the compensation process.

Lakshmi Narayana added, "The properties of the company have already been attached. Ministers themselves have made false promises and assurances that they would disburse the compensation quickly but failed to do so. They are yet to even arrest all the accused in the case."  He also asserted that the families affected continue to suffer due to the delay in the compensation process.

The state BJP has written to the Centre with allegations that the state government is at fault for the investigation and the compensation process, demanding CBI inquiry at the earliest. The BJP chief demanded so because, despite the repeated orders from the Hyderabad High Court, the issue remains unresolved.

The state unit of the BJP, last week, asserted that they would conduct protests for the same.

Lakshmi Narayana said that he took it to the central government because the state government was ignorant of the same and that the ruling party is interested in other properties belonging to the AgriGold.

The scam:

In 2014, around 32 lakh people were deceived by the AgriGold scam in many states including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. AgriGold now owes Rs 6,380 crore to over 32 lakh depositors with Andhra Pradesh at the top with 19 lakh depositors.

Several lakh depositors were tempted by the company promising high investment returns. The company also invested the ill-gotten money in real-estate before branching out and eventually duping the customers.