“You’re Intoxicated By Power”: Anna Hazare To Arvind Kejriwal On Delhi Liquor Policy Row
“Like liquor, power too intoxicates. You seem to be addicted to power. This is only one of several harsh passages in the letter that social crusader Anna Hazare wrote to his former protege, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, regarding the policy on government liquor licences that was abandoned in July due to a corruption investigation.
The letter, written in Hindi, begins, “This is the first time I am writing to you since you became chief minister, since I am hurt at recent news stories about your government’s liquor policy.”
“You had written idealistic things on liquor policies in your book ‘Swaraj’, for which you got me to write the introduction,” he says, quoting from it that no liquor shops be opened without area residents’ approval. “You have forgotten those ideals after becoming chief minister.”
The Aam Aadmi Party, which was founded by you, Manish Sisodia, and others, is “no different from any other party now,” according to Mr. Hazare. If we had continued to act as a pressure group and conducted the awareness campaign that I advised, no place in India would have developed such a bad alcohol policy, the author claims.
In the meantime, Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister, had his bank lockers looked at today as part of the ongoing CBI investigation into the programme. Earlier, his home was searched.
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