You are drunk on power: Anna Hazare’s scathing letter to CM Kejriwal over liquor policy

Delhi, August 31, 2022: Social activist Anna Hazare wrote a scathing letter to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday wherein he asserted that Kejriwal is intoxicated with power and has forgotten his own ideals.

In a sharply-worded two-page letter, Hazare, who also happens to be the social mentor of Kejriwal, wrote that he did not expect such policies and actions from the Delhi government. He also accused Kejriwal that his people are stuck in a vicious cycle of money and power.

“This shows that your words are different from your actions,” he said. The new excise policy, Anna Hazare claimed, can encourage corruption by allowing the opening of shops across the city.

Hazare quoted from Kejriwal’s book ‘Swaraj’, to “remind him” of his earlier stand on liquor.
He went on to say that Kejriwal seems to be “drunk on power”, and that the AAP leader has not stayed true to the ideals of the 2012 anti-corruption movement, in which both of them worked together.

The veteran also wrote that instead of bringing in a Lokayukta law, Kejriwal’s government has brought in a policy that will “ruin lives” and affect women negatively.
“After becoming the chief minister, you have forgotten about the Lokpal and Lokayukta, which were at the center of the anti-corruption movement. In the assembly, you have not even once tried to bring in place a strong Lokayukta”.

Anna Hazare was the face of the anti-corruption movement in 2011, from which the AAP emerged. At the time, while choosing to stay out of the party and avoiding electoral politics, Hazare gave the party his “blessings”. But he has since criticized the party on several points.

His letter comes on a day when Delhi Dy CM Sisodia’s bank locker was searched by CBI in relation to corruption in the Delhi excise policy.