CHENNAI, India (AFP) - The death toll from contaminated alcohol in southern India rose to 160 on Wednesday with people still drinking the lethal brew after the first reported deaths at the weekend, police said.

The number of dead in Karnataka state has risen sharply from 53 on Monday to 115, with neighbouring Tamil Nadu accounting for 45 deaths, said Sanjay Arora, a senior Tamil Nadu police officer.

Karnataka’s capital Bangalore accounted for 89 deaths, the state’s top police officer R. Srikumar told AFP.

“The toll could go up as victims, mostly casual workers and construction labourers, are battling for life at state-run hospitals in Bangalore and other districts,” Srikumar said.

In Tamil Nadu, Arora said law enforcement officers had “held detailed discussions with top (Karnataka) officials and shared intelligence on locations where distillation of the brew is taking place.”

The illegal distilleries were operating close to the border between the two states, and were frequented by farm labourers and other daily wage earners, he added.

The three-phase provincial polls currently underway in Karnataka were also pushing up demand for cheap liquor with distillery owners mixing methyl alcohol with water for quick profits, Arora said.

Politicians supplied their workers with food and cheap country-made alcohol for organising election meetings and helping with door-to-door campaigning, Arora said.

Meanwhile, S.R Nayak, who heads Karnataka’s human rights panel, blamed the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments for not cracking down on the distillers.

“It is a lapse on the part of the authorities, who have not checked the illicit brewers,” he told AFP by phone.

Deaths from cheap alcohol are frequent in India and most victims are poor.