By Sidharth Mishra
Celebrated British poet TS Eliot ends his 1925 poem 'Hollow Men' with the lines ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.’ A party which came to power in Delhi riding a popularity wave on the account of its claimed fight against corruption, has just signed a confession statement on being corrupt.
For the first time in post-independence history we have an instance of a Minister criticising a proposal which he himself piloted in the cabinet. After the Delhi cabinet approved the abandoning of Excise Policy 2021-22, Sisodia was quoted as saying, “They (BJP) are threatening shopkeepers, officers with ED and CBI, they want legal liquor shops to be closed in Delhi and earn money from illegal shops. We've decided to stop the new liquor policy and ordered to open govt liquor shops.”
That the city's Finance Minister was out of his wits on the issue was evident in statement issued on the same day, which said, “We brought a new liquor policy to stop corruption. Before that government used to get around Rs 6,000 Cr revenue from 850 liquor shops. But, after the new policy, our govt would have got more than Rs 9,000 Cr with the same number of shops.”
Can a government sound so helpless, can Ministers from a government which sat on a dharna at Raj Niwas led by their chief minister Arvind Kejriwal would act so meek on the 'threats' held out by the Delhi BJP leaders? The point to be noted is that cabinet decision to abandon Excise Policy 2021-22 came following a police investigation into policy and a faceoff with the Lt Governor who has sought a CBI probe in the matter, based on a report by the Chief Secretary.
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