Liquor Policy-AAP

Friends, there have been many hues and cries when CBI raided the premises of  Delhi’s Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, along with many of his associates and officials in connection with corruption charges related to changes in liquor excise policy.

Now, what were the changes made to Delhi’s existing liquor policy by the AAP government?

• The new liquor policy was proposed in 2020 and implemented in November 2021, when the city of Delhi was reeling from pandemics.
• It changed the manner in which liquor was sold, earlier the liquor business was a state-controlled entity with no private players. Only government controlled-owned liquor vendors were permitted to sell liquor.
• Earlier there were four government corporations that ran 475 liquor stores.
• Under the new policy, 849 liquor selling licenses were awarded to private companies through bidding. Delhi was divided into 32 zones and a total of 27 private vendors were allowed to liquor shops in each zone.
• Further, these shops were allowed to offer discounts on the MRP in order to attract consumers. Shops were allowed to deliver liquor at home, and even keep their shops open till 3 am.

It has been reported that at the same time the AAP government reduced the excise duty on liquor to be sold in Delhi.

The first alarm was raised by Delhi Chief Secretary on July 8^th, 2022, as he found irregularities and procedural lapses in this new liquor policy, and sent a report to Lt. Governor of Delhi. This report accused Manish Sisodia of providing undue benefits to those holding licenses in return for the money that was used by AAP in Punjab elections. The report mentioned that the liquor mafia was also granted a benefit of Rs144 crores.

The report “ Indicates substantively of financial quid pro quid at the top political level, where in Minister in charge of the Excise Department, Manish Sisodia, took and got executed, major decision/actions in violation of the statutory provisions and the notified Excise police that had huge financial implications”. The report also claimed that Manish Sisodia reportedly waived off Rs 144.36 crores on the license fee, to be paid by liquor vendors, under the pretext of the pandemic. He also caused loss to the Excise Department and provided benefits to the liquor lobby by waiving the import pass fee of Rs 50 per beer case.

Even when the new Excise policy was being framed, there were lots of lacunae that were pointed out by then Lt. Governor’s office and the main one was that should be some action plan for the government employees and corporations which are financially dependent on the liquor business, and policy was approved after they were rectified. The LG also objected to a provision in the new policy that authorized the deputy CM to make minor changes to the excise policy. The LG said that any minor or major changes should be done only with the approval of the cabinet.

After the report of Delhi’s Chief Secretary(as mentioned earlier), the LG took this report into consideration and recommended a CBI probe on 22^nd July 2022.

After the announcement, the AAP government started feeling jittery, and on 29^th July Manish Sisodia withdrew this controversial liquor policy and reverted to the older policy which permits government-owned shops to sell liquor. Starting 1^st September, only Delhi government corporations will be allowed to run retail shops as the city will be returning to the old excise regime.

After the raids started by CBI, counter allegations by the AAP government have started against the Modi government at the Centre.

1. PM Modi is worried about the AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s popularity after the Punjab elections and exercising a political vendetta against AAP leadership.

My remark on this- AAP won Punjab elections as people were fed up with the Congress-led government there. The BJP was a junior partner in an alliance with Akali Dal there, and hence there was a vacuum that was filled by AAP. But at the same time, AAP fared very badly in the state elections in Uttarakhand, UP, and Goa. So their submission of BJP  and PM is unfounded.

2. As Per AAP, initially then the LG never objected to the opening of 849 shops in Delhi, but two days before the implementation of the police, he changed his stand, and because of this the shops could not be opened in unauthorized areas, leading to loss of revenue of thousands of crores to the government.

My remark on this- Why the AAP government tried to open shops in unauthorized areas and still wanted the LG to approve the locations?

There are many more allegations, but the crux of all of them is, it is political vendetta, and PM Modi is afraid of AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal.

Here are some of my observations on this matter:

1 In the present case, this is a clear case of corruption/money laundering- as the AAP government reduced the excise duty, but liquor suppliers did not change the MRP, but instead, they offered some discounts to the users. The difference was pocketed by both liquor suppliers and AAP.

2 This all happened during the corona pandemic, when the whole country was reeling under recession, job loss/business losses and there were many people who were facing a shortage of rations. In this scenario AAP is offering cheap liquor to them is really surprising.

3 For the last 8 years AAP is shouting from the rooftop the BJP and PM Modi are afraid of them, whereas the fact is that wherever Congress is weak AAP has been able to garner votes on the promises of freebies.

4 As soon as the CBI raid started, Manish Sisodia started quoting an article in New York Times (NYT), in which AAP’s education model was praised and the same article was repeated by one newspaper in Gulf. The full world knows about the anti-India stand of NYT, and most probably it is paid news by AAP, In this case, also, their allegations are the same that BJP is afraid of them.

5 A party (AAP) which came to power on the stand of corruption, especially by UPA in 2004-14, could never be kept of their promises of rooting out corruption, instead, there are many cases of corruption against their leaders, and one of the ministers from Delhi Satyendar Jain is behind the bars for money laundering.

It looks like the party which came into existence on the promise of they will not be corrupt like Congressmen are now following in the footsteps of Congress, where corruption is concerned.

Lastly, if AAP’s new excise policy was a very good revenue model, why did they withdraw the same and went back to the old policy?

Waiting for your views on this blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

22^nd August 2022.