After grilling, Sisodia claims CBI pressurised him to leave AAP

The CBI on Monday grilled Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Aam Admi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia on Delhi excise policy case. Emerging out of the grilling session, Sisodia claimed that CBI pressurised him to leave AAP. “The case is completely bogus, and I will not bow down to any pressure,” Said Sisodia.
Before heading to CBI Headquarters on Monday morning, the Deputy CM was seen taking blessings from Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat and also reached the agency office flanked by party workers. AAP leaders and workers also protested outside the CBI office to express support for Sisodia, with several people including AAP leaders Sanjay Singh, Rakhi Birla, and Kuldeep Kumar among others have been detained by the police.
Sources said that the CBI was tough on Sisodia and asked as many as 50 questions pertaining to the excise case. However, at the end of the day Sisodia came out from the CBI office showing victory sign.
Sisodia later claimed that CBI asked him to leave AAP saying that what is in Kejriwal’s party…better you leave them. You would be finished if such things continue, claimed the Deputy CM.
“CBI also told me that other parties may make you even CM, here in AAP you are not going to get that,” Sisodia claimed. “I replied that I am not in politics to be the CM, I am here to serve the nation, to work for education and poor.”
Meanwhile, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra lashed out at the AAP over the rally. Patra called it as a “celebration of corruption”. “When Rahul Gandhi was summoned by ED, then also Congress started doing drama like this. It will not be an exaggeration to say that it is a celebration of corruption. First, they did corruption while giving liquor licenses in Delhi and now they are doing all this drama,” Patra said.
“The way Manish Sisodia was raising slogans in an open car on the streets along with his supporters today, it seems as if Aam Aadmi Party has won the World Cup of corruption. Arvind Kejriwal was a part of Anna Hazare’s Andolan and used to say that he will finish corruption, but now it seems AAP has itself become the most corrupt party in the country,” Patra further said.
In August, the enforcement agencies conducted searches on Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia’s official residence among several other places in connection with the alleged corruption in the implementation of Delhi’s excise policy.
Sisodia, in charge of the excise department, has been under the scanner for alleged deliberate and gross procedural lapses which provided undue benefits to the tender process for liquor licensees for the year 2021-22.
Sisodia is believed to have executed decisions in violation of the statutory provisions of the Excise Policy, which could have huge financial implications. Such “undue financial favours” to the liquor licensees after the deadline for awarding tenders caused huge losses to the exchequer, sources earlier claimed.
The excise policy was passed in chief minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi Cabinet in the middle of the deadly Delta Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
Sisodia was among 15 others booked in an FIR filed by the CBI in August including then Excise Commissioner Arva Gopi Krishna, Deputy Commissioner Anand Tiwari and Assistant Commissioner Pankaj Bhatnagar.
The ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had alleged that irregularities were committed while modifying the Excise Policy, undue favours were extended to licence holders, the licence fee was waived or reduced and the L-1 licence was extended without the competent authority’s approval. The beneficiaries diverted “illegal” gains to the accused officials and made false entries in their books of account to evade detection.