The parties, including CPI, CPI (M), Lok Satta Party, besides TDP, demanded that the state government itself run the liquor business as the current system of holding lottery to allot shops results into benami transactions by traders.
Highlighting the negative fallout of liquor consumption and its business, the parties demanded that the liquor trade should not be a major source of income for the government.
The leaders of the opposition parties, who held protests near the venues where the lottery was being drawn to select the liquor shops, were taken into custody in Hyderabad and elsewhere in the state.
A report from Ongole said CPI State Secretary K Narayana and party activists were rounded up by the police when they held a demonstration there.
