ED’s third summons to CM in excise case: AAP seeks legal opinion, BJP claims Kejriwal in hiding

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva alleged, “The courts have in various decisions said that there is liquor brokering by the Aam Aadmi Party. There has been a money trail, and a huge amount has been used for election campaign in various states of the country through hawala. The mastermind of this liquor scam is Kejriwal and he knows this very well, that is why he is hiding.”

Northeast Delhi BJP MP Manoj Tiwari alleged: “The conspiracy hatched by Kejriwal and his leaders along with the liquor mafia to make the youth of Delhi fall into the trap of alcohol addiction has now been exposed before the public. Kejriwal will definitely be punished for his crimes.”

The AAP, in response to the summons issued on Friday, termed it vendetta, adding that the party could neither confirm nor deny whether the summons had been served.

Kejriwal had earlier been asked to present himself before the agency on December 21 which he had, in his reply furnished to the ED after skipping the summons, termed “politically motivated”.

Responding to the fresh summons, the AAP termed the case against the Delhi CM “fake” and a bid to target its leadership. “This is a completely fake case only to target the AAP leadership. The BJP has not been able to produce a single evidence in court,” the AAP said in a statement.

“It’s just political vendetta to counter the growing popularity of AAP across the country. Since CM Kejriwal has left for Vipassana on 19th, we cannot confirm if another summons has been received or not,” the AAP added.

Both the CBI and ED have registered separate cases in connection with the now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22, which allegedly favoured certain dealers in return for bribes.

In April this year, the CBI questioned Kejriwal in connection with its case. In its preliminary complaint – akin to a chargesheet – filed in a Delhi court in February, the ED had said that Kejriwal allegedly spoke to another accused in the case – Sameer Mahendru – on a video call and asked him to continue working with co-accused Vijay Nair, AAP’s communication in-charge, referring to him as “his boy”.