Refuting Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s charges against him, former lieutenant governor Anil Baijal said that the allegations against him are “baseless and motivated”.
Earlier, Sisodia accused Baijal of changing his stand over opening liquor vends in unauthorised areas and claimed that it led to a loss of thousands of crores of rupees to the Delhi government. He wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over the matter and sought a probe into it.
Baijal said that Sisodia is trying to find alibi for his and his colleagues’ acts of “omission and commission”. The former Lt Governor also said that he had flagged the AAP government’s unlawful decisions.
The BJP earlier slammed Sisodia and said that the AAP government is trying to divert attention from the irregularities in its excise policy and using Baijal as a “sacrificial lamb”.
Hitting out at Sisodia, who also heads the excise department, BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra asked why he was silent so far.
“The Kejriwal government is trying to divert attention from irregularities in its excise policy by blaming (the former) L-G as they need a sacrificial lamb since the CBI probe is going to uncover those irregularities,” Patra had said at a press conference.
Baijal was the Delhi L-G when the Arvind Kejriwal government prepared the new excise policy, which was implemented on November 17, 2021.
Earlier, the AAP government announced that it will go back to the old regime of retail liquor sale in the city for a period of six months, withdrawing its excise policy. This came after incumbent Lt Governor VK Saxena recommended a CBI probe into alleged violation of rules and procedural lapses in the excise policy.
Saxena has also suspended 11 officials, including then Delhi excise commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna and deputy excise commissioner Anand Kumar Tiwari, over “serious lapses” in the implementation of the policy, according to sources, PTI reported.
Sisodia earlier alleged that like Gujarat, the BJP wants to promote sale of spurious and off-duty liquor by threatening Delhi’s shop-owners and officers. He also accused the BJP of using CBI and ED to threaten liquor licensees and excise department officials so that new excise policy fails.
