Delhi’s Ex Lt Governor Gets Blamed By APP, BJP Says “Scapegoat”
Source- AAP Blames Delhi’s Ex Lt Governor For “Huge Loss”, BJP Says “Scapegoat” (ndtv.com) ; maish sisiodia – Bing images
The Delhi Lieutenant Governor, Anil Baijal gets blamed by the Delhi government for the corruption in the new policy excise, which took place after the CBI investigation and its implementation. It caused a loss of thousands of crores to the state government. Manish Sisodia, the deputy Chief minister, who also leads the excise, recommended a CBI investigation with a change of mind. The Aam Aadmi Party said that it was planned and claimed it will benefit a few liquor shop owners. He also claimed the investigation to look into if any Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader had any involvement in it and if LG took any decision under pressure.
Sambit Patra, the national spokesperson of the BJP questioned why the deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia kept quiet so far. BJP has further stressed the silence of Mr. Sisodia and has claimed that AAP needs a “sacrificial lamp” for the “irregularities”. The CBI will find out the case in the matter.
Mr. Patra said that the Kejriwal government is trying to divert the matter and blame it on the LG as the CBI probe will find out those irregularities they made. He added that the change of LG’s decision led to a profit of thousands of crores to the shopkeepers while the government had a loss. He continued that the new Excise Policy of 2021-22 benefited some as it was not allowed to be implemented properly.
When the Kejriwal government created the excise policy on 17 November 2021, Anil Baijal was the Delhi LG who is still left at commenting on the allegation.
Mr Sisodia said the excise policy which was passed in May, 2022 decided that there would be an equal number of liquor shop in every area. He claimed, that earlier there were up to 20 shops in a single place while others had none. The policy clearly mentioned that the number of vends would not exceed 849 and the would be placed equally in every area across Delhi. Shops will be also set up in the unauthorized colonies. LG sahib, himself after reading the policy agreed to it and approved the police without any objections.
Manish Sisodia said that the proposal to open the shop in the first week of November was carried out and it reached the former LG. Later he made a new condition that the approval of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was to be taken to open a shop in an unauthorized colony.
He said that due to the licensing many suffered as the LG sahib changed his decision. The license holder reached the court as their shops could not open while some shopkeepers got huge profit. Mr. Sisodia said that the state government lost “thousands of crores of rupees” as there was a change in decision just before 48 hours of the shops to open. About 300 to 350 shops could not open dure to the sudden change in the decision of the LG sahib. Such sudden change in mindset made Mr. Sisodia to demand the CBI to investigate if the former LG was pressurized under any condition or there was any BJP leader behind the drastic change in the policy agreement.
The Excise Policy of 2021-22 was extended twice after March 31 for a period of 2 months each and will be ending on July 31. The excise department is working on the excise policy of 2022-23 about the home delivery of liquor in India. The draft policy is yet to be reported to the Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena for his approval. VK Saxena claimed for the CBI investigation of look into the violation of rules and lapse in implementation of the Excise Policy 2021-22 under which private firms were issued with license for retail sale of liquor in the city divided into 32 zones.
PTI reported that LG suspended 11 officials including the ex-Delhi excise commissioner, Arav Gopi Krishna, over lapse in implementing the excise policy.
