Till a month ago, Bonige Anandaiah, the self-styled Ayurvedic practitioner of Krishnapatnam village of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh was making a big news almost every day.
The miracle drug prepared by Anandaiah for treating Covid-19 patients had hit the headlines of even national media.
It got a huge hype with the Andhra Pradesh government giving him permission to distribute the drug after obtaining clearances from various agencies, including Central Ayush Ministry.
The “Anandaiah medicine” also kicked up a political row. While YSR Congress party legislator from Sarvepalli Kakani Goverdhan Reddy took the initiative in the distribution of medicine and obtaining of permissions, his political rival of TDP Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy accused him of commercially exploiting the medicine.
Anandaiah himself was in the control of the Nellore police for a couple of weeks due to pressures from various sides and was allowed to go back to his place only after the government gave all the permissions.
But surprisingly after that, nobody bothered about Anandaiah or his medicine.
He made repeated appeals to the government to provide him infrastructure and other financial support to distribute the medicine, but the authorities quietly withdrew themselves from the scene.
Though the government initially proposed to take up online distribution of medicine, it backed out subsequently.
Even the political parties who tried to gain some political mileage over Anandaiah’s medicine have also quietly disappeared.
According to reports, the initial rush witnessed at Krishnapatnam to take Anandaiah medicine has now subsided to a large extent.
However, it is learnt there are still some enquiries for the medicine from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. In any case, the initial euphoria over the mystery medicine is not to be seen now!
