Nov 19: A complaint is registered with the DCP (North), informing him about the ``illegal distribution of liquor in jhuggi clusters of the Timarpur Assembly constituency''.

Nov 22: The Lodhi Colony police recover 24 liquor bottles from a car near Rajiv Gandhi camp behind CGO complex. A pamphlet on the dashboard asks voters to elect Tilak Raj Malhotra, the independent candidate contesting from Jangpura.

After exhausting posters, padyatras and speeches, party workers are now busy organising all night pre-poll parties in various parts of the city. Liquor flows freely as party workers try and persuade people to vote for their candidates. It has been happening for years. The only difference this time round is that the Excise Department has decided to play party-pooper and has launched a campaign to neutralise smugglers who supply illicit liquor as an election sop to the voter. Liquor worth Rs 2.5 lakh has been seized by Excise Department officials so far this month. Eight vehicles have been seized, 25 cases registered and 26 arrested in the first three weeks of November. And, with the last day campaigning for the Assembly elections today, the figures are expected to shoot up.

Today, Nand Nagari, Raghubir Nagar, Inderpuri, Dabri, jhuggi clusters across the Yamuna and everywhere else in the city are flooded with pouches of liquor. And more is coming in from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Gyanendra Srivastava, commissioner, excise department explains: ``Today, the smugglers are armed with fast-moving vehicles, cellphones and even weapons. They do not have a very sophisticated modus-operandi and rely on speed and accurate information regarding the whereabouts of security personnel. Smugglers these days are a rich lot''.

The cellphone-toting smuggler is rich from the money he made during prohibition in Haryana. While the smuggling route has now been reversed, smugglers are up against excise officials minus cellphones, weapons or wireless sets. ``We have asked for wireless sets in view of the fact that their networking is better than ours,'' says Srivastava. ``But given the odds, our men have made more seizures this year than last and our revenue has also gone up considerably.''

In the financial year 1997-98, 141 cases of smuggling were registered. Between January and November this year, 264 cases have already been registered. Moreover, week ending November 13, Rs 10.3 crore excise revenue was collected, 15.6 per cent more than the week ending November 6.

This success rate is in spite of the fact that during Rajendra Gupta's term as excise minister, a letter was sent to him from the department informing him about the problem. The department had asked the minister to request his counterparts in the Uttar Pradesh government to check the flow of liquor pouches into the Capital. The matter was never taken up by the government.