The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia in a money laundering case related to the alleged irregularities in the national capital’s now-scrapped liquor policy, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a tweet.
The arrest comes less than a fortnight after the Central Bureau of Investigation had arrested the former deputy chief minister of Delhi on February 26 in the same alleged scam. Sisodia is currently in judicial custody of the CBI and a Delhi court is scheduled to hear his bail plea on Friday.
Two days after his arrest, Sisodia had resigned from the Delhi Cabinet along with former minister Satyendar Jain, who is in custody of the Enforcement Directorate in a separate case of alleged money laundering.
On Thursday, Kejriwal wrote in a tweet that the Enforcement Directorate arrested Sisodia a day before his bail hearing as the central agencies want to keep him in custody at any cost.
“They just have one motive - to keep Manish in custody. By cooking up false cases every day,” Kejriwal tweeted. “The people are watching. They will give the response.”
Sisodia has been held by the CBI in connection with the Delhi government’s excise policy that came into effect in November 2021. Under it, licences of 849 liquor shops were issued to private firms through open bidding. Earlier, four government corporations ran 475 liquor stores and the remaining 389 were private shops.
However, the policy was withdrawn by the Aam Aadmi Party-led government on July 30 after Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena recommended a CBI inquiry alleging irregularities in the policy’s formulation and implementation.
The Enforcement Directorate is investigating a money laundering angle in the alleged scam.
Sisodia’s arrest has once again triggered allegations from the Opposition parties that the Narendra Modi-led central government is misusing central agencies to target its rivals. On Sunday, nine Opposition leaders wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to protest Sisodia’s arrest.
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