Manish Sisodia To Be Questioned By CBI In Liquor Policy Case Today: 10 Points

1. The CBI called Mr Sisodia for questioning on February 19. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, who is also Delhi’s Finance Minister, however, sought a week’s time citing a tight schedule as he has been preparing the Delhi Budget. The CBI agreed to his request.

2. Mr Sisodia has said he will “fully cooperate” with the central agency. The BJP’s Delhi unit, however, called Mr Sisodia’s request an “excuse”. “Budget was an excuse. The objective was to run,” Delhi BJP spokesperson Harish Khurana had said in a statement.

3. Mr Sisodia and others face corruption allegations in bringing a new liquor sale policy in the national capital. Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena had ordered the CBI probe last year.

4. Thereafter, the Delhi government reverted to the old liquor policy and blamed the Lieutenant Governor for loss of revenue worth crores of rupees that the AAP government claimed would have come if the new policy had continued.

5. The BJP said the Delhi government went back to the old liquor sale policy to cover up corruption in the excise department held by Mr Sisodia. The CBI has named seven accused in the liquor policy case chargesheet, which has no mention of Mr Sisodia.

6. The CBI has said it is focusing on the alleged influence of a “South Lobby” of businessmen and politicians making the Delhi liquor policy to swing in their favour using middlemen, traders and bureaucrats. Recently, the CBI arrested Butchibabu Gorantla, a former chartered accountant of K Kavitha, leader of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi and daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

7. The AAP alleged the BJP at the centre was behind the Lieutenant Governor’s decision to send the CBI after Mr Sisodia. The liquor policy case soon found itself on top of the long list of friction points between the AAP and the Lieutenant Governor, and by extension the centre.

8. The most recent example of the friction between the Lieutenant Governor and the AAP was when the Supreme Court agreed to the AAP’s request that members of Delhi’s civic body nominated by the Lieutenant Governor can’t vote in the mayor election.

9. Mr Sisodia said the CBI summon was the BJP’s way of getting even after it failed in its attempt to get the nominated members to vote.

10. Even before the mayor election, back in November last year, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had alleged that the centre, with the Lieutenant Governor working as a proxy, wanted to harm the AAP’s election campaign in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP had swept the polls.

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