Sisodia shared excise policy details with Telangana, WB

Mumbai: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s excise department policy for 2021-2022 is under the CBI scanner, even as an excise policy along identical lines was introduced in West Bengal by CM Mamta Bannerjee and a hush-hush meeting was held between Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR). Even as the excise policies are being investigated for allegedly being tweaked to benefit private liquor business houses at the cost of the respective state exchequers, a foreign angle has also cropped up. One of the 15 prime accused against whom the CBI has issued look-out notice, Vijay Nair— founder of event and celebrity management firm Only Much Louder (OML)—has gone to ground after his linkages with Sisodia and affiliates of pro-Khalistani groups based out of Canada, USA and the UK have surfaced.

A person familiar with the development said, “Vijay Nair and Swara Bhaskar are part of a lobby group set up in the USA with the conscious agenda to undermine India through a targeted forum known as the Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR). The advocacy group had even scheduled a fund-raiser event hosted by stand-up comic and Nair’s protégé Kaneez Surkha on Sunday in the US. Bhaskar had earlier denied any association with HfHR but was thereafter inducted into its advisory board.” He added that the CBI has also stumbled upon hush-hush meetings between Sisodia and KCR held recently at the Oberoi hospitality facility in Telangana. “Sisodia is believed to have shared detailed intricacies regarding the Delhi Excise policy model with KCR, and also with his West Bengal counterpart, following which it was similarly enacted into law by the Mamta Bannerjee-led TMC government,” the source alleged. The fact that HfHR has tied up with two other perceived anti-India lobby groups abroad—the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and Organizations for Minorities of India (OFMI)— with the three having formed a grouping known as AJA has not been missed by Indian intelligence agencies. “Particularly, OFMI was founded by Bhajan Singh Bhinder—who India has designated a terrorist, and who has been receiving funds from the Pakistani ISI for over 30 years for fomenting trouble in India,” the person added.