Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Shri Devender Yadav said that Delhi Congress’ charge that Kejriwal was hiding the CAG reports without tabling it in the Assembly for discussion only to cover up his corruption in the old liquor policy,  has now been exposed, that he had committed corruption to the tune of Rs 2026.91 crore in the liquor deal.

Shri Devender Yadav said that  it was the Delhi Congress which first complained to the Lt. Governor about   corruption in the implementation of the old liquor policy, as there was huge scam in granting licenses, direct violation of Delhi Excise Rule 2010, in which there was provision that licenses for wholesale, retail etc. cannot be given simultaneously to the same company or to a company in which the director is common, i.e cross ownership or proxy company, so that unfair practices of cartelization can be stopped. He said that there was huge scam in the pricing of two Indian Made Foreign liquors.

Shri Devender Yadav said that Kejriwal gave a free hand to the contractor, for a price of course, to declare ex-distillery price, i.e, if a company is making any liquor, then it was given a free hand to fix the price due to which it increased the rates in Delhi while the same company kept the prices low in other States. This resulted in reduced sales and loss of revenue to the Delhi Government.

Shri Devender Yadav said that it came as no surprise that there was serious compromise on the quality of liquor, as otherwise, the liquor companies would not have been able  sell one bottle free for one bought, and that was the reason liquor not of the BIS standard was allowed to sell through the vends in Delhi, including illegal liquor.

 Shri Devender Yadav said that during the Congress government, in 2013, a barcode system was introduced on every bottle from inventory to the point of sale, but the AAP government was lax in implementing it and ended transparency. He said that an Expert Committee’s recommendations were thrown into the garbage, as instead of charging duty on every bottle, excise duty was imposed only on the license fee. The  committee’s suggestion was that only 2 contracts should be given to a vendor, but that was ignored and a vendor was given maximum provision for 54 licenses. He said that some contractors left the contracts ahead of schedule, which were not retendered, causing huge loss to the State.

Shri Devender Yadav said that open loot was  carried out to help benefit contractors in many ways. He said that not only Kejriwal committed the worst corruption in a shameful manner, but also pushed unemployed youth into the abyss of liquor addiction