PIONEER NEWS SERVICE
After maintaining a long, studied silence over his former protégé Arvind Khejriwal going against his avowed no-liquor path and boosting the booze trade and consumption to pump money into the State exchequer to carry on with its populist profligacy, the veteran Gandhian activist Anna Hazare ascribed the poll debacle of the Aam Aadmi Party in the high-stakes Delhi’s electoral battle to the AAP government’s liquor policy and its focus on money. “The AAP has drowned due to the liquor policy and its focus on money,” he said in a jibe aimed at Kejriwal. The activist whose anti-graft movement had struck an emotive chord with a large section of people across the country further said while talking to media persons in Ralegan Siddhi village that a candidate’s character should be clean and he should tread the path of sacrifice.
The AAP which was born riding the crest of Anna’s movement is now trailing far behind the Bharatiya Janata Party with the saffron party having established unbeatable leads in 48 seats and the AAP ahead in 22 seats. The electorate has also dealt AAP a body blow by dumping Kejriwal and his Man Friday and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia from New Delhi and Jangpura seats respectively.
