Liquor 'scam': Delhi BJP protests outside AAP leaders' homes

New Delhi: Delhi BJP led protests of slum-dwellers, auto-rickshaw drivers, and senior citizens near the residences of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his ministers on Friday, demanding Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's dismissal over the alleged liquor scam.

Adesh Gupta, president of the BJP's Delhi unit, said people were with the party as the "excise scam" that benefitted the liquor mafia at the cost of public money had been exposed. Gupta led the protest near Sisodia's Mathura Road residence.

"The agitation started by the BJP with the support of women, RWAs and social organizations of Delhi against the irregularities in new excise policy has reached a turning point. Kejriwal, who had joined the fight against corruption with Anna Hazare, carrying the tricolour in his hand is now himself neck deep into corruption," Gupta charged.

He added that the Kejriwal government was trying to evade questions, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would not rest till Sisodia was removed.

Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and BJP Delhi unit general secretary Dinesh Pratap Singh led the protest outside the chief minister's residence.

"Whenever questions were asked to the Kejriwal government, in the Assembly or outside it, over its liquor policy, they did not bother to even answer. But, the people want to know why it withdrew this policy that they had declared as the best in the world," Bidhuri said.

Various cells of the BJP's Delhi unit, including those representing slum-dwellers, auto rickshaw drivers, senior citizens, apart from party workers from Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and the southern states, protested outside the residences of AAP ministers. BJP MLAs Vijender Gupta and Om Prakash Sharma led the protest outside Transport minister Kailash Gahlot's residence, Kuljeet Chahal, general secretary Delhi BJP led the protests near residences of ministers Gopal Rai and Rajendra Pal Gautam.