mr-clean-pumped-slush-money-off-liquor-scam-to-win-goa-elections

The Enforcement Directorate has claimed that Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party Arvind Kejriwal received a kickback of Rs 100 Crore from South Liquor Group which he used to pump campaigning of his party for Goa assembly elections.

 

The agency said that Kejriwal, as the kingpin and key conspirator of the Delhi liquor scam, colluded with his cabinet colleagues to formulate Excise Policy 2021-22 to favour South Liquor Group headed by K. Kavitha.

 

The agency in the remand petition has claimed that Kejriwal was involved in demanding kickbacks from liquor businessmen in exchange for favours granted in the said policy.

 

However, the ED demanded 10 days of his police remand, and the special CBI-PMLA court of Kaveri Baweja of the Rouse Avenue Court allowed the ED to question him till March 28th.

 

The agency stated that Kejriwal was directly involved in the formulation of the Excise Policy to favour the South Liquor Group. Kejriwal, along with his close associate Vijay Nair besides his cabinet colleagues namely Manish Sisodia and Satyender Jain were involved in the conspiracy.

 

The agency has referred to the statement of C. Arvind (then Secretary of Sh Manish Sisodia) where he revealed that around mid of March 2021, Sisodia called him to the residence of Kejriwal and handed over around 30 pages document which was a draft Government of Ministers report. 

 

He was asked to prepare a final document of the GoM of Excise Policy in such a way as to help private players.

 

The ED placed on record certain WhatsApp conversations of some private players and middlemen which strongly suggests that the draft policy was modified at the last minute at the behest of the South group.

 

The agency said that Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha conspired with Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia to get favours and was involved in the payment of Rs 100 Crore.

 

YSRCP leader Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy who later turned approver accepted that on instruction of Kavitha, he had arranged Rs 25 Crore as part of the payment. Kejriwal had demanded Rs 100 Crore in the name of election funding for Punjab and Goa.

 

The agency said that Kejriwal pumped nearly Rs 45 Crore out of the total proceeds of crime in the Goa election campaign in Goa in 2021-22.

Dinesh Arora, a close associate of Manish Sisodia revealed that on the instructions of Vijay Nair, he coordinated the Hawala transfer of Rs. 31 Cr along with Abhishek Boinpally, Rajesh Joshi and Sudhir.

 

Abhishek Boinpally is one of the key representatives of the South Group, Sudhir is a close associate of Vijay Nair and Rajesh Joshi is owner of M/s Chariot Productions Media Pvt Ltd. This firm Chariot Productions was engaged by the AAP for its election campaign in Goa.

 

There were a few other advertisement agencies hired by AAP for campaigning.

 

AAP made a part cash part bill payment to advertisement agencies to hide actual expenditures and to launder tainted money.

 

The ED said that for cash payment AAP used the Angadia system which is a century-old parallel banking system in the country. Traders send cash generally from one state to another through a person called Angadia which stands for courier.  

 

The ED has stated that Mumbai-based Angadiya operator R Kantilal having office in Goa had transferred sizable cash to advertisement companies for AAP. Notably, the IT in January 2022 had raided the Goa office of R Kantilal Angadiya and seized all the documents/notes/chits/slips.

 

The investigation revealed that Rs. 45 Cr approx. had been transferred through Hawala to Goa.

 

“This Hawala trail of Rs 45 Crore approximately is also investigated and substantiated by the predicate agency CBI and the same were duly mentioned by CBI in its Second Supplementary Charge sheet filed before Special Court,” the ED said.