CBI officials leave Manish Sisodia's residence after 14-hour-long raid

New Delhi: Central Bureau of Investigation officials left the residence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia after a 14-hour-long raid in the Excise police case on Friday.
The CBI had reached the Aam Aadmi Party leader's residence early in the morning today along with 30 other locations. The AAP and BJP levelled several allegations during the day while the raids were underway at Sisodia's residence with the former accusing the latter of trying to hamper the development process in the education and health model of Delhi, while the BJP accused the AAP of doing corruption in the New Excise Policy which now stands scrapped.
Sisodia was among 15 persons booked in the FIR filed by CBI. Excise officials, liquor company executives, dealers along with unknown public servants and private persons have too been booked in the case.
The FIR said that "facts in the matter prima facie disclose the commission of offences" punishable under section 120-B, 477A IPC and section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988" against the accused.
The premises of then Excise Commissioner Arava Gopi Krishna and Anand Tiwari were among those searched.
The raids led to a political slugfest with Union Minister Anurag Thakur hitting out at Kejriwal and Sisodia over alleged "liquor corruption".
"No matter how hard a corrupt person tries to prove himself innocent, he will still remain corrupt. This is not the first case of corruption by AAP. There has been huge corruption in the liquor stores in Delhi," Thakur said.
The Union Minister alleged that Delhi's liquor policy was withdrawn on the same day a CBI investigation was ordered into it. "If there was no scam in the liquor policy, why was it withdrawn?" Thakur asked.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh stressed that the raids on Delhi's Deputy CM were an attempt to stop the "revolutionary work done in the education and health sector" by the Kejriwal-led Delhi government.
"Manish Sisodia was on the front page of America's biggest newspaper New York Times. Everyone throughout the whole country is happy about it but not the BJP. He has done some extraordinary work when it comes to the health sector, be it Mohalla clinics or be it the education sector, the AAP leadership has revolutionised all of it. Now these CBI raids are nothing but an attempt to stop all of this," Sanjay Singh told the media.
"The developments prove that the next Lok Sabha election in 2024 will be AAP versus BJP, it will be Modi versus Kejriwal. We will fight. I am saying it again that you cannot stop Kejriwal, or our education or health model. You may arrest our health minister or education minister, but no work of Delhi will be stopped," he added. (ANI)