‘Our sources say CBI will arrest Manish Sisodia on Sunday’: Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said Deputy CM Manish Sisodia will be arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday.

“CBI has summoned Manish Sisodia for questioning. Our sources say he will be arrested on Sunday,” Kejriwal said as per reports. Kejriwal's statement comes almost a week after Sisodia was summoned for questioning in connection with the Delhi consumption policy case.

The deputy chief minister in the Aam Aadmi Party government, who was also in charge of the excise department, was earlier questioned on October 17 last year and his home and bank lockers were also searched in connection with the case. The CBI is now focusing on the alleged influence of a "southern lobby" of traders and politicians in formulating and implementing the liquor policy in Delhi with the aim of changing it in its favor with the help of middlemen, liquor traders and civil servants.

Arrested businessmen Vijay Nair and Abhishek Boinpally were among the seven accused in the charge sheet filed on November 25 last year. Allegedly, the Delhi government's policy of granting licenses to liquor traders favored certain dealers who allegedly paid bribes to do so, an allegation strongly refuted by the AAP.

Recently, the CBI arrested Butchibaba Gorantla, former chartered accountant K Kavitha, BRS MLC in Telangana and daughter of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. Babu is said to have met several accused named in the FIR in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai and was one of the main negotiators from the southern lobby, which wanted to change the now scrapped excise duty policy for 2021-22 in its favour. The CBI had also questioned Kavitha in connection with the case in December last year. During its investigation, the CBI found evidence that Babu was acting on behalf of a southern lobby comprising Telangana MLC, YSRCP MP Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy and P Sarat Chandra Reddy of Aurobindo Pharma.