Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is scheduled to appear before the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday in the alleged excise policy scam.
However, there were speculations that the Aam Aadmi Party supremo will miss the summons as according to sources, Kejriwal is also scheduled to travel to Madhya Pradesh’s Singhrauli today, for an electoral campaign.
The summons to Kejriwal was served six months after he was questioned for nearly nine hours by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case.
The Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22 is being probed by the ED and the CBI, as it allegedly favoured certain liquor dealers, an allegation that AAP has strongly denied.
On Wednesday, Kejriwal’s party alleged that the Chief Minister would be the first to be arrested as part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s plan to target top INDIA alliance leaders, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
At a press conference in Delhi, AAP leader Raghav Chadha claimed that since 2014, 95 per cent of cases registered by investigative agencies have been against opposition leaders.
“Now after the formation of the INDIA alliance, the BJP is rattled. We have learned from sources that they have hatched a plan to target top leaders from the INDIA alliance. The first arrest in this plan will be of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal,” he said.
“The BJP knows it is losing all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. It is planning to get Kejriwal arrested so that AAP is not able to contest the polls,” Chadha added.
DELHI EXCISE POLICY SCAM
Former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was arrested by the CBI in the case in February this year. The ED arrested Sisodia in a money laundering case stemming from the CBI FIR on March 9 after questioning him in Tihar jail. His bail plea was rejected by the Supreme Court earlier this week.
After his questioning by the CBI in April in the alleged liquor scam, during which he was asked about 56 questions, Kejriwal had termed the entire case “fabricated” and an attempt to finish the AAP.
Based on a report by the chief secretary of the Delhi government, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena recommended a CBI probe in July last year into alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the policy.
The report cited various alleged irregularities including a waiver of Rs 144 crore to the retail licensees under the policy in the name of Covid-19-impacted sales and a refund of Rs 30 crore to a successful bidder for the airport zone who failed to obtain a no objection certificate for opening liquor stores there, officials said.
Another allegation was that the commission of wholesale licensees was raised from five per cent to 12 percent in an instance of “quid pro quo”, they added.