The Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22 was the “best” of its kind and would have earned Rs 10,000 crore every year had the former lieutenant governor not been “asked” to change his decision at the last minute, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Saturday. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had on Friday carried out searches at 31 places, including the residences of Sisodia and former excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna, after it registered an FIR for alleged corruption and bribery in the formulation and execution of the excise policy brought out last November.
The Aam Aadmi Party has condemned the raids, with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claiming that the agency was “asked from above” to harass its leaders. On the other hand, the BJP has asked the city government to come clean on its excise policy. “The excise policy, based on which raids were conducted at my residence, was the best policy in the country.
“Had they not got the LG to change his decision just 48 hours before the implementation of the policy, it would have generated a revenue of Rs 10,000 crore every year for the Delhi government,” Sisodia said in a tweet. Earlier this month, the deputy chief minister had accused former LG Anil Baijal of changing his stand over the opening of liquor vends in unauthorised areas and claimed that it led to a loss of thousands of crores to the city government.
Sisodia had said he sent the details of the matter to the CBI and asked for a probe into it. “On November 15 last year, two days before the implementation of the policy, the LG changed its stand and introduced a condition mandating permission from the Delhi Development Authority and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to open liquor shops in unauthorised areas,” he had alleged.
“As a result, the shops could not be opened in unauthorised areas, leading to a loss of revenue of thousands of crores to the government. On the other hand, the shops that opened witnessed a huge income,” he had said. In a hard-hitting statement issued on August 9, Baijal had rejected Sisodia’s allegations as “baseless” and “falsehoods perpetrated by a desperate man to save his skin”.
The former LG had said Sisodia was trying to find an alibi for the “acts of commission and omission” committed by him and his colleagues.
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