Over Satyendra Jain’s arrest, war of words break out

New Delhi, May 31: A war of words has broken out between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and BJP following the arrest of Delhi's Health Minister Satyendra Jain by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case.

Both the Congress and BJP welcomed the action, but the AAP called the arrest as political vendetta. Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia said that Jain was arrested soon connection with an 8 year old fake case.

The ED said that Jain was evasive in his replies. Jain is likely to be produced before a court today. The ED said that Jain was involved a hawala transaction with a Kolkata based firm in 2015-16. A money laundering case had been registered by the ED based on a FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2017 on the alleged possession of disproportionate assets.

It was also alleged that Jain and his family set up four shell companies to launder Rs 11.78 crore in 2011-12 and Rs 4.63 crore in 2015-16. The case was also probed by the Income Tax (IT) Department.

"A fake case has been going on against Satyendar Jain for eight years. He has been called by the ED several times so far. The ED had stopped calling him for some time because it did not find anything against him. Now it has again started because he is the incharge of Himachal Pradesh elections," Sisodia said in a tweet in Hindi.

AAP's Sanjay Singh said that soon after Jain was appointed as the AAP in-charge in the poll-bound Himachal Pradesh, Jain was arrested by the ED in a baseless case to defame the party.

"Kejriwal always kept mum on corruption charges against his party leaders. The arrest of Jain by the ED has come days after an AAP minister was arrested and sacked in Punjab people want Kejriwal to speak about it," Delhi BJP chief, Adesh Gupta said.

Delhi Congress president, Anil Kumar said that Jain's arrest was a right step taken by the ED. Jain ought to have been arrested much earlier and Kejriwal has been protecting him for many years, Kumar also said.

It may be recalled that in February this year, Kejriwal claimed that he had learnt from sources that the ED is going to arrest Jain.