The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday targeted Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart and party colleague Bhagwant Mann linking them to the alleged liquor scam in the national Capital.
BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala said that the scam does not stop at former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia but goes up to Kejriwal and Mann. His comment came after a special court on Friday denied bail to Sisodia stating that “there was also nothing apparent on record to infer or show that Manish Sisodia’s arrest, in this case, was illegal or violative.”
“Why did the court refuse to give relief to Manish Sisodia, accused in the liquor scam? Manish Sisodia and company have received a bribe of ₹100 crore and this has been verified through the court,” Poonawalla told reporters in Delhi. “Manish Sisodia was not an honest person but a corruption planner,” he said.
“However, the Delhi liquor scam is not limited to Sisodia but the top members in the Delhi government are involved in it and this is what the court says. This means that this whole scam was activated after discussing with the highest person in the government beforehand. Because the decision taken by the GoM and the Cabinet cannot happen without the approval of the chief minister, and this is not a natural insinuation but a natural implication,” he added.
Targeting Mann, he alleged that a liquor wholesaler was allegedly forced to surrender his license by using the Punjab excise department as the businessman had interest in that state also.
There was no immediate reaction from the AAP.
Sisodia was arrested by the Central Burau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the ongoing investigation of the case related to alleged irregularities in the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22, which has now been scrapped.
Dismissing his bail plea on Friday, Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court said that the “evidence collected so far by the CBI not only shows the applicant’s active participation in the above criminal conspiracy but also shows the prima facie commission of some substantive offences of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act by him.”
