Chandigarh, Aug 25 (PTI) Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday alleged a Rs 500-crore scam in the Punjab excise policy, saying the state was defrauded like in Delhi, and demanded a thorough probe into the case by the "CBI and ED".

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Badal claimed that AAP government in Punjab had followed the "Delhi model" while framing the excise policy, and said his party will appeal to the Punjab governor to take action.

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Badal said "now when an FIR had been registered in the Delhi excise scam, the same should be done in case of Punjab also".

“The policy and policy makers are the same. The modus operandi to loot the state exchequer is the same," he said here.

"Like in Delhi, nearly the entire liquor trade in Punjab was handed over to two companies," he alleged, adding the profit margin of the two companies was doubled to facilitate a quid pro quo.

The SAD chief said while framing the new excise policy, the AAP-led Punjab government followed its counterpart in Delhi.

“It stipulated that each liquor manufacturing company would choose one licensee to sell its products in the state and that the L-1 (wholesale) licensee should not be a manufacturer in India or abroad. It also stated that L-1 licensees should have a turnover of at least Rs 30 crore per annum and should not have any stake in the retail market in Punjab. Such terms took the Punjab liquor traders out of the race," he said.

Badal alleged that the policy resulted in the handover of nearly the entire liquor trade to two companies.

He said that CBI and ED probes, which his party demands, could only reveal the truth in the case.

Last week, Congress Legislative Party leader in Punjab Assembly Partap Singh Bajwa, along with other party leaders, had said they will meet the governor seeking a probe into the excise policy in Punjab.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)