The Enforcement Directorate claimed on Monday that K Kavitha, the leader of the BRS, and a few other individuals “conspired” with prominent AAP officials, including as Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, to obtain favourable treatment in the now-canceled Delhi excise policy by giving ₹ 100 crore to the political party in power in Delhi.
The federal agency detained 46-year-old Kavitha, an MLC and the daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, last Thursday from her Hyderabad residence. She will remain in the ED’s custody till March 23.
The investigation revealed, according to an ED statement, that Kavitha and other individuals “conspired with the top leaders of AAP including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia for getting favours in the Delhi excise policy-formulation and implementation.” “In exchange of these favours, she was involved in paying ₹ 100 crore to the leaders of AAP,” the agency said.
It claimed that the AAP received a steady flow of illicit monies in the form of bribes from wholesalers as a result of “corruption and conspiracy” during the creation and execution of the Delhi excise policy 2021–2022.
It alleged that “Kavitha and her associates were to recover the proceeds of crime paid in advance to AAP and to further generate profits/proceeds of crime from this entire conspiracy.” The agency, while seeking the remand of Kavitha last week, told the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court that she was “one of the kingpins, a key conspirator and beneficiary of the Delhi excise policy scam”.
Kavitha had earlier claimed that she had done nothing illegal and said that since the BJP was unable to obtain a “backdoor entry” into Telangana, the Centre was “using” the ED.
The Aam Aadmi Party has accused the BJP was using ED and CBI as its “goons” to finish off political opponents.
Since the filing of a complaint in 2022, the agency claimed to have searched 245 places nationwide and to have detained 15 people, including Manish Sisodia, the head of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and a former deputy chief minister of Delhi, Sanjay Singh, the AAP leader, and a few spirits merchants.
It has so far filed six charge sheets in this matter, attaching assets valued at more than ₹ 128 crore.
The Delhi government’s excise policy, which grants licences to liquor dealers, has been accused by the ED and the CBI of facilitating cartelization and of favouring specific dealers who had reportedly paid bribes for it. The AAP has strenuously denied these allegations.
After the policy was abandoned, Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena suggested that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) look into the anomalies in the creation and application of the policy. Subsequently, the ED filed a PMLA lawsuit.
