By Shankar Raj*
Thiruvananthapuram: After a liquor scam put Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party government in the dock in Delhi, another liquor scam has now surfaced, this time in Kerala.
Bribery and kickbacks in allotting bar licences to hotels in Kerala, once a potent weapon used by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) against the then Congress-led government of Oomen Chandy in 2015, has returned to sting the Left Democratic Front (LDF) now.
Even as the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan-led State Government has given ample hints that the rules governing the running of bars would be eased, an embarrassing leaked audio has surfaced in which an office bearer of the Federation of Kerala Bar Association is heard instructing bar owners to pay Rs 2.5 lakh each to fulfill certain demands, including the scrapping of the dry day policy and extending bar working hours from 11 PM to 12 AM.
“For the favours being extended to us, we need to keep the authorities in good humour. There are more concessions coming our way in the new Excise Policy and we need to do a quid pro quo,” he is heard as saying.
The president of the Federation denied that the topic was discussed at a meeting of bar owners in Kochi on Thursday, May 23, 2024. “The demand for money was for a building fund,” V Sunil Kumar, president of the Federation, told the media. However, investigations show that the issue of building funds was not on the agenda of the meeting while the new excise policy was.
There are 800 bar hotels currently operational in Kerala.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president K Surendran called the scam a carbon copy of the Delhi liquor scandal which led to the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, VD Satheesan, said, “The voice message from bar owners makes it clear that the CPI(M) demanded money in exchange for favours to hotels and bars in Kerala”.
“The only thing to be known is where the note counting machine is: in the Excise Minister, MB Rajesh’s house or with CM Pinarayi Vijayan or at the AKG Centre” (the party’s state headquarters), ” he said while demanding the resignation of the Excise Minister.
Responding to the allegations, Rajesh vehemently denied any wrongdoing, stating, “The govt will take strict action against those who attempt to collect money in the name of bringing some concessions in the Excise policy. Govt has not started any consultation on this year’s excise policy, even before that, a series of news coming from the last month based on such media reports, certain people are trying to collect money as other media reports suggest. We won’t allow anyone to do illegal activities and we will take strict action.”
A very similar audio had surfaced during the tenure of Oommen Chandy which eventually led to the resignation of then Excise Minister KM Mani in 2015.
*Shankar Raj is a former editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
