Delhi's governing Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its arch-rival opposition parties -- the BJP and Congress -- are set to highlight the alleged liquor policy scam case in a major way through separate public awareness drives.
The drives come in light of the recent arrest of the AAP's second-in-command and Delhi deputy state chief Manish Sisodia in the liquor policy case.
The parties will aim to present their versions of the liquor policy case before residents of the city.
Although the AAP will reach out to the citizens of Delhi to explain that there was no scam in the liquor policy, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress will try to target the AAP by elaborating on the alleged scam caused by the Sisodia-headed excise department's policies.
AAP Campaign Against Sisodia's Arrest
The AAP's awareness drive started on Friday with its volunteers holding meetings in all 70 assembly constituencies of the city against the BJP. The decision was made on Thursday in an organizational meeting chaired by Delhi state unit convener and minister Gopal Rai.
It was decided that the Delhi unit will organize 2,500 “Nukkad Sabhas” ("street meetings") across the city until March 10 to raise the public's awareness about the alleged misuse of the federal probe agencies by the central government.
While talking to the media after the meeting, Rai said: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted an authoritarian approach and arrested country's best education minister, Manish Sisodia, and also misused the federal agencies to keep Satyendar Jain in jail.”
Rai also informed the media that Delhi state chief and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal had held a meeting with all the lawmakers and councilors, where he asked them with reaching out to people and inform them about the truth of the case.
The motive of the meetings starting Friday is to make people of Delhi aware about the conspiracy hatched by BJP to stop the AAP.
Rai stated that as of now, the initiative is being held at the state level, but soon it will be carried out at the national level.
Opposition's Counter to AAP's Awareness Drive
In a bid to counter the awareness drive of the AAP, the BJP has already started a public awareness drive to expose its chief rival in Delhi.
Talking to Sputnik, the BJP’s former general secretary, Ashish Sood, said: “We have started reaching out to the people of Delhi at booth-level to expose the scam in the liquor policy case.”
“The awareness drive is to make the people of Delhi aware that AAP and its politicians are involved in corruption. It is a long exercise as we will reach out to 13,000 booths in the city,” he stated.
Meanwhile, sources in the BJP also confirmed that senior politicians of the party will also participate in the public awareness drive across different locations.
The Delhi BJP's working president, Virendra Sachdeva, told the media that the city’s development has been stalled due to the “corruption” of the Kejriwal-led government.
The BJP has been highlighting the fact that although the policy was introduced by Sisodia, the mastermind behind the scam is AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal. Therefore, it is demanding his resignation.
The Delhi unit of Congress is also planning to reach out to local residents against the AAP.
Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar said that politicians will visit residents to expose the corruption in the liquor policy and all other alleged scams committed under Kejriwal’s leadership in the last eight years.
All About Sisodia's Arrest
India’s top anti-corruption watchdog the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested AAP minister Sisodia on Sunday in the liquor policy case. A Delhi court sent him to five-day custody on Monday.
Sisodia challenged his arrest in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but the top court refused to grant him bail.
The investigation into the now-scrapped liquor policy, introduced by the AAP government in Delhi in November 2021, started in August last year, after the city's Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena ordered a probe into it.
The BJP has accused the AAP, Kejriwal, and Sisodia of giving undue benefits to liquor vend licensees.
However, the AAP has denied all the allegations, describing the case against Sisodia as fake.