New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Satyendar Jain has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged money laundering case.
The ED has alleged that the New Delhi health Minister was involved in transferring funds through the hawala system (transactions with local agents instead of banking channels) with a Kolkata-based firm in 2015-16.
In 2017, Mr Jain and his family had been nominated in an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly laundering up to INR1.62 crore.
Mr Jain and his family very alleged of setting up four shell firms (companies with no real business) to launder INR11.78 crore in 2011-12 and INR4.63 crore in 2015-16.
The ED started their investigation against Mr Jian on the basis of the CBI’s FIR against the AAP leader.
The arrest of Mr Jain is likely to spark a clash between the AAP and the BJP, as opposition leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Mamta Banerjee have repeatedly alleged the central government of using the central agencies to harass the state governments.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted, “A fake case is being run against Satyendar Jain for eight years. Till now ED (Enforcement Directorate) has called many times. In between, ED stopped calling for many years as they did not get anything. Now they started again because Satyendar Jain is the election in-charge of Himachal,”
The Deputy CM added, “BJP is losing badly in Himachal. That is why Satyendar Jain has been arrested today so that he cannot go to Himachal. He will be released in a few days as the case is completely fake.”
In January, Arvind Kejriwal had said that his sources have told him about the possible arrest of Mr Jain by the ED.
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Mr Kejriwal, talking to reporters before the Punjab elections, which the AAP won said, “From our sources, we have got to know that right before Punjab polls, in the coming few days, the ED is going to arrest Satyendar Jain. They are most welcome. Previously too, the centre had conducted raids on Satyendar Jain but got nothing,”
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