Amidst the Enforcement Directorate (ED) turning the heat on Chhattisgarh government in connection with an alleged ₹20,00-crore liquor scam, the ruling Congress on May 15 accused the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime of indulging in an even bigger, ₹4,400-crore face value, excise scam.
Congress’s State media incharge Sushil Anand Shukla demanded an ED probe into the said scam that according to him, was the consequence of the policy adopted by former Chief Minister Raman Singh.
This, he claimed, caused a loss to the exchequer in three separate ways — through irregularities in categorising liquor made by some producers present in the State as IMFL (Indian- Made Foreign Liquor); by giving much higher profits than other States to the country liquor tenderers/licensees in the years between 2012 and 2017 through the sale price fixation of liquor; and by the previous Excise Department entering into criminal conspiracy with various tenderers/licensed liquor contractors to benefit some liquor manufacturers in the assessment of sales tax by wrongly changing the licensing conditions shown in the Rules for the Retail Sale of Liquor of the State of Chhattisgarh.
