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Delhi Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) President Saurabh Bhardwaj on Sunday challenged Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta to clarify her stance on the privatization of liquor shops under the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) upcoming excise policy.
The challenge came in response to Gupta's sharp criticism of AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal in Ludhiana, where she accused him of colluding with the "builder mafia" and failing to curb spurious liquor deaths in Punjab. Speaking to ANI, Bhardwaj said, "I have a direct question for her (CM Rekha Gupta). BJP objected to the Delhi Excise Policy and claimed that liquor shops had been privatized. Later, the policy was scrapped, and the shops became government-owned again. Rekha Gupta should clarify if she will privatize liquor shops under the new Excise Policy. This will reveal who is in collusion with the liquor mafia. She should answer this." Earlier in the day, CM Gupta launched a scathing attack on Kejriwal during a public meeting in Ludhiana, Punjab, where she was campaigning for BJP candidate Jiwan Gupta in the Ludhiana West by-election scheduled for June 19. AAP has fielded sitting Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora as its candidate for the same seat. Addressing a gathering, Gupta said, "People are dying from spurious liquor, but what are you (Arvind Kejriwal) doing? You are grabbing the land of poor farmers in connivance with the builder mafia. The people of Delhi, who had given you so much support, got a little angry with you, and you came and sat in Punjab... Arvind Kejriwal has hollowed out the state government... Today, you have buried it under a debt of 4 lakh crores due to your wrong policies." Gupta also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Operation Sindoor's success and criticised Kejriwal's silence on the operation. She stated, "Every person in the country was happy with Operation Sindoor... None of the drones (of Pakistan) crossed the Punjab border, which happened under PM Narendra Modi's guidance. But you did not utter a word in its praise... There was not a single Punjabi or Sikh minister in 10 years of your tenure in the Delhi government. The entire Punjab government runs under the command of Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain, Bibhav Kumar, and Raghav Chadha. What do they have to do with Punjab?" Earlier, Gupta received a warm welcome from Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leaders at Sirhind in Fatehgarh Sahib district. (ANI)
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