'A for advertising, B for bahane baazi’: BJP explains AAP's ‘ABCD’ liquor policy

BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said that while their policy is to provide tap water in every household, Delhi chief minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal's is to ensure liquor reaches each home.

In fresh salvo against the AAP-led Delhi government over its liquor policy, the BJP on Sunday said that chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's liquor model can be defined in “ABCD where A stands for advertising, B for bahane baazi (making excuses) and blame game, C for corruption and cover up, and D for deviation or diversion". The Delhi liquour policy has pitted the BJP vs the AAP.

Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and deputy CM Manish Sisodia. (PTI) (File photo)

BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla made the statements at a press conference held at the party's headquarters in Delhi earlier in the day. He added that Kejriwal has replaced his government's “happiness classes” model with that of “happiness glasses”.

“This policy was exposed after the Delhi LG (Vinai Kumar Saxena) ordered a CBI probe. While our policy is to provide tap water in every household, Kejriwal's policy is to provide liquor to each home,” Poonawalla said at the press briefing, news agency PTI reported. The party spokesperson alleged that the AAP government has given “ ₹144 crore waiver to liquor mafia”, and are now working overtime to turn people of Punjab and Delhi - both ruled by AAP - into addicts despite promising otherwise.

Delhi L-G Saxena on Friday had recommended the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the AAP regime's excise policy 2021-22, flagging several procedural lapses in its implementation that he suggested were aimed at benefiting private liquor barons, and individuals at the highest ranks of the government.

Notably, the new liquor policy was introduced in November last year, with the Kejriwal government saying it would eradicate malpractices and better user experience.

Kejriwal, however, has junked all the allegations, terming them as “baseless” and false. He also predicted that Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who also head's the Capital's excise department, would get arrested. “I have been saying that they will arrest Manish Sisodia. There is a new system in India. They decide who has to be jailed, then a fake case is created against that person. This case is fake. There is no truth in it,” he said on Friday.

He further stated Sisodia is an “honest politician” and that the AAP is “not scared of jail”.

Later, officers in the L-G's office replied to Kejriwal's remarks, saying Sisodia, under the full political patronage of the Delhi CM, took decisions pertaining to the new excise policy without taking the Cabinet into confidence.