The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, a close associate of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha in the Delhi excise policy case. The agency is also expected to question former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia inside Tihar Jail, where he is lodged after getting arrested on February 26 by the CBI which is also probing the Delhi excise case.

Pillai was part of the South Lobby that the ED has accused of paying a ₹100 crore bribe to the AAP leader for influencing the excise policy. Member of Telangana Legislative Council Kavitha, who was questioned at her residence last December, has been named as a member of the South Lobby, and the ED accused her of holding stakes in Indospirits, owned by Sameer Mahendru.

The ED officials are expected to reach Tihar in the afternoon to record the statement of Sisodia who was remanded to judicial custody by a Rouse Avenue Court after the CBI had stated that it was not interested in extending his custody and may need later. He will remain in Tihar jail till March 20.

The ED had sought the court’s permission to question him behind the bars over charges that he was key to alterations in the excise policy that led to cartelisation, besides he allegedly changed several of his phones to destroy evidence. Sisodia, who was also doubling as minister for excise, has been named as one of the accused in the liquourgate.

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