On September 15, a sting video of accused number 9 in the Delhi liquor scam, Amit Arora, went viral on the internet. Sharing the video, Bharatiya Janta Party commented, “How two people get business worth 10,000 Crores. How you can make 150 crores on investment of 10 crores. See another sensational expose on Arvind Kejriwal government’s liquor scam.”
दो लोगों को कैसे मिला 10 हजार करोड़ रुपये का धंधा।
— BJP (@BJP4India) September 15, 2022
10 करोड़ लगाकर कैसे कमाए गए 150 करोड़ रुपये।
देखिए, केजरीवाल सरकार के शराब घोटाले पर एक और सनसनीखेज खुलासा। pic.twitter.com/5SmFgoI1lm
In the video, Amit Arora can be heard sharing how bribes and corruption have been organized under the Delhi excise policy. As per Arora, liquor giants in the region gave 100 crores in cash to Aam Aadmi Party which could be utilised for the party’s election campaigns in places like Goa and Punjab.
Arora also shared how the policy was tweaked to help these big players in the market. License fees was raised from Rs 10 lakhs earlier to as much as Rs 5 crores, making it difficult for smaller retailers to survive, giving these big wholesalers the total control of the market. Unlike other states, Delhi also stopped fixing a quota for these wholesalers, letting them control the entire business.
As per Arora, Aam Aadmi Party government also increased the commission for the wholesalers from 5% to 12%, to help them make more money. The same policy has been implemented in Punjab, with the wholesalers’ commission at 10%. As per Arora, this way, the wholesalers gave their black money to AAP and in return, got a chance to earn it back manifolds in white.
Amit Arora shared that business of as much as 10,000 crores was given to only two players by the AAP government by making these tweaks in their excise policy.
Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia is the accused number 1 in this liquor scam. Earlier, a 6-minute video allegedly of the father of Sunny Marwah, an accused in a liquor scam, had gone viral on social media. In most of the video, the person who appears to be Kulvinder Singh Marwah, Sunny’s father, was talking about how changes in the liquor policy favoured the Aam Aadmi Party.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has listed 15 accused including Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia in an FIR on Friday 13th August 2022 following hours of raids into the alleged excise fraud. The excise department, which the deputy chief minister oversees, implemented a new strategy last year that ruled government liquor stores shut down and private businesses granted licenses.
Along with Manish Sisodia and Excise officials, CBI has named several private persons for involvement in the scam. Apart from the 15 persons named in the FIR, CBI also included ‘other unknown public servants and private persons’ as accused in the FIR.
