What's the connection of liquor scam and AAP? ED's sensational revelations
What's the connection of liquor scam and AAP? ED's sensational revelations
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New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), the central probe agency probing money laundering in a case related to the Arvind Kejriwal government's liquor policy, on Wednesday (November 30) told a special court in Delhi that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) communications in-charge Vijay Nair had received a bribe of at least Rs 100 crore to pay AAP leaders. The probe agency said the money "came from a group called South Group". The group is operated by Sarath Reddy, K Kavitha, Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy. The ED said that, however, the identity of Kavitha is yet to be ascertained.

In August this year, BJP leaders Parvesh Verma and Manjinder Singh Sirsa alleged that Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao's daughter and MLC K Kavitha had a role in facilitating the Delhi liquor policy. Kavita had then denied the allegations, saying she would file a defamation suit. Now the ED has said that AAP leaders, including some ministers in the Delhi government, considered Delhi's excise policy as a "means" to collect illegal funds at the outlay of government funds. The ED said at least 36 accused, including Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and CM Arvind Kejriwal's personal assistant (PA), have "used and destroyed" 170 phones to hide evidence of multi-crore "bribes" in the scam. '

The investigating agency further said, "While formulating this policy, there were deliberate lapses,  a mechanism was created to make illegal activities possible and deliberate differences were made. Looking deeper, this demonstrates the wrong intentions of policymakers. "To show, this policy had a commendable objective of curbing factionalism of traders and encouraging fair modes of trade, but in reality, due to the criminal conspiracy of AAP leaders, it promoted backdoor factionalism, made excessive wholesale (12 percent) and large retail (185 percent) profits possible and encouraged other illegal activities," the ED said.

The ED also claimed in the court that the AAP government in Delhi "lost 12 percent or Rs 581 crore in revenue only due to filling up of personal coffers of AAP leaders and a total revenue loss of Rs 2,873 crore (including loss of license fee) due to alleged irregularities in the policy". The ED made the claims while seeking custody of Amit Arora, director of liquor company 'Buddy Retail Private Limited', after his arrest on Tuesday night. Arora was later remanded in ED custody till December 7 by the court.

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