The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was behind the Delhi liquor policy scam, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh alleged on Friday. Singh, a Rajya Sabha MP who was released from Tihar Jail on Wednesday, also tried to link one of the accused in the case, Magunta Reddy, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and claimed that a conspiracy was hatched against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the case on March 21.
Singh was lodged in Tihar Jail following his arrest in the liquor policy case and the Supreme Court had, while granting him bail, set the condition that he would not make any public statement regarding the case. The AAP leader, however, spoke at length about this at a press conference at the party office in Delhi. He also showed the images of Reddy in the company of Modi and claimed that Kejriwal was arrested in the case soon after the electoral bonds data was released to divert the attention from the real accused.
Sanjay Singh's allegations
It is not the “small fry” in the BJP but its “senior post holders” who were involved in the actual liquor scam, Singh contended. When Magunta Reddy was asked by the ED on September 16 if he had met Kejriwal, he had answered honestly that he had met the Delhi Chief Minister with regard to the land of a charitable trust. Later Raghav Reddy was arrested and jailed for five months and then he (Magunta Reddy) changed his statement, Singh claimed. “Magunta Reddy gave three testimonies while his son Raghav gave seven testimonies,” Singh claimed. “Between February 10 and July 16, 2023, seven testimonies were taken from Raghav and six out of seven times he said Kejriwal was not involved.
Magunta Reddy's picture with PM Modi
But he broke down after five months of being jailed and in the seventh testimony changed his version,” the AAP leader contended. The Reddy father-son duo had not taken the name of Kejriwal in nine of the testimonies and were only later forced into testifying against him, Singh said. The ED put the testimonies in which the Reddys had not named Kejriwal in the category of “unrelied upon documents”, saying it could not trust them, he said. “Our lawyers were shocked when they read these statements,” he said. Singh displayed a picture of Magunta Reddy with Modi and said: “I will show you a picture. Look at it carefully.
Here he is with the country’s PM.” “When Reddy testified against us, when he joined hands with the BJP in the conspiracy, he got bail on July 18 and was released,” Singh alleged, adding that the bonhomie did not end there. “Now he is contesting elections from the TDP and used the pictures of the PM to seek votes,” he said, showing a picture of Reddy in a political campaign. Singh also said liquor businessman Sharath Reddy, who used to call BJP corrupt, was raided on November 9, 2022. Sharath Reddy did not name Kejriwal in any of his 12 statements and insisted that he had never met him. “Then he was arrested and remained in jail for six months. Finally, on April 25, 2023, he gave a statement against Kejriwal.”
Singh: The real scam started after the ED began its investigation
“The real scam started after the ED began its investigation. Those with the BJP received a ‘reward’ of Rs 5 crore on November 15 while Sharath Reddy paid a bribe of Rs55 crore to the BJP,” Singh alleged. The electoral bond data was released under pressure from the Supreme Court, Singh said. This was put in the public domain on March 21 it revealed how “Sharath Reddy was the real liquor scam kingpin”, he said. Barely 20 minutes into the release of this data, Kejriwal’s house was raided to divert the attention of the people from the major scam involving the BJP, contended the AAP MP. Delhi BJP president Virendraa Sachdeva asked why AAP did not retract the liquor policy if it was not involved in the scam. Singh should also answer whether or not “a meeting was organised with restaurant owners between 1-3 at night when the liquor policy was being changed”, he said.
