AAP claims the Supreme Court denied its allegation that it received Rs 100 crore in payments from Kavitha and labels the ED a “political weapon.”

Minister for Delhi Atishi said on Tuesday that the Enforcement Directorate had turned into a “political weapon” and that the Supreme Court had rejected the agency’s contention that BRS leader K Kavitha had paid AAP politicians Rs 100 crore in exchange for favors under the now-cancelled excise policy.

Speaking at a news conference, she said that the move taken by the federal investigative agency was intended to prevent Arvind Kejriwal, the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and chief minister of Delhi, from running for office in the Lok Sabha elections.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) agency seized Kavitha, the MLC daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, last week from her Hyderabad residence. She is being held by the federal inquiry agency till March 23.

The Delhi Excise Policy (DEA) said in a statement on Monday that Kavitha and other individuals “conspired with the top leaders of AAP, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, for getting favours in the Delhi excise policy formulation and implementation.”

“In exchange for these favours, she was involved in paying Rs 100 crore to the leaders of AAP,” alleged the news organization.

Atishi refuted the accusation, stating, “Press releases are distributed by political parties. What prompted the ED to produce a political news release? This indicates that ED is now being used as a political tool. There is just one political figure that the BJP fears: Arvind Kejriwal. They want to prevent him from running in the Lok Sabha elections.”

“The Enforcement Department (ED) said in a news statement yesterday that AAP leaders received a bribe of Rs 100 crore. She said that the Supreme Court rejected this claim when it heard former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia’s bail request last year.

Similar sentiments were expressed by her cabinet colleague Saurabh Bharadwaj, who said that Kejriwal’s questioning of the BJP causes them to feel uneasy at another news conference.

“Our main leaders are incarcerated. He said, “They are attempting to imprison our top leader.”

Additionally, he restated that the ED’s investigation into the excise policy issue has yielded no results, including the discovery of a money trail.

Since the investigation was filed in 2022, the agency claims to have searched 245 places nationwide and to have detained 15 individuals, including several liquor traders and AAP leaders Sisodia and Sanjay Singh.

It has so far filed six charge sheets in this matter, attaching assets valued at more than Rs 128 crore.

The AAP has vehemently denied the allegations made by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that the Delhi government’s excise policy, which granted licenses to booze sellers, encouraged cartelization and favored particular dealers who had reportedly paid bribes for it.

After that, the policy was abandoned, and Lieutenant Governor of Delhi V K Saxena suggested that the CBI look into the anomalies in the creation and application of the policy. Afterwards, an ED case was filed in accordance with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.