The investigation of ED in Delhi liquor policy scam took a southern turn yesterday as the central probe agency named Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter and legislator K Kavitha as one of the active participants, reports NDTV.
The ED referred to the statements of Amit Arora, a Gurugram-based liquor baron whom they arrested on November 29 and said there was a ‘South group’ involved in the scam that paid Rs. 100 crores to the AAP leaders through another arrested Vijay Nair, the communication-in-charge of AAP.
The police were presenting Amit Arora to the court that sent the businessman to 7 days’ ED custody. The central probe agency submitted, “As per the investigation carried so far, Sh Vijay Nair, on behalf of leaders of AAP has at least received kickbacks to the tune of ₹ 100 Cr from a group; called South Group (controlled by Sh Sarath Reddy, Ms. K Kavitha, Sh Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy) by various persons including Amit Arora. The same has been disclosed by the arrestee Sh Amit Arora in his statements.”
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Reacting strongly to the ED charges, K Kavitha while echoing her father's allegations said that BJP has been for long trying to destabilise Telangana government. She referred to the impending elections and said that everybody knows that "ED arrives before Modi".
Pointing out that BJP has already destabilised nine state governments in eight years, she said, "You cannot win elections using your central agencies." However, she also welcomed ED and assured that she will cooperate in the investigation.
The probe agency also said that AAP leaders some of whom old crucial position in the government used the now-scrapped excise policy as a tool to get undue benefits at the cost of state exchequer. It also alleged that deputy CM Manish Sisodia and the personal assistant of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ‘destroyed or used’ 170 phones to collect the kickbacks amounting to thousands of crores.
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However, reportedly the ED has recovered 17 cell phones and noted had the other cell phones been found, engagement of several other people could have been unearthed.
“The policy was formulated with deliberate loopholes, inbuilt mechanism to facilitate illegal activities and is marred with deliberate inconsistencies which when looked deeply, reflect malafide intentions of the policymakers,” the ED said.
Their submission also added that the Delhi government “lost revenue of 12 per cent or Rs 581 crore...only to fill the personal coffers of the leaders of the AAP and overall the total loss of revenue due to alleged irregularities in the policy stood at Rs 2,873 crore (including loss of licence fee)”.
Earlier, in its chargesheet CBI, another probe agency looking into the alleged excise policy scam didn’t name the deputy CM Manish Sisodia triggering reactions from the AAP leaders to an extent that Sisodia asked the Prime Minister to apologise for what he has been through.
As the name of TRS leader has already come up in the scenario, one must remember that Telangana CM KCR in the recent time has been out and open alleged BJP of trying to topple his government. He also revealed some CCTV footages that allegedly showed people trying to bribe TRS MLAs to shift the boat.
