ED arrests AAP minister in alleged money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate arrested Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain in an alleged money laundering case. The agency said the AAP minister was involved in the hawala transactions with a Kolkata-based firm in 2015-16.

The CBI had filed a case against Jain and his family in 2017 for alleged money laundering of up to Rs 1.62 crores using four shell firms. These firms are said to have laundered Rs 11.78 crore in 2011-12 and Rs 4.63 crore in 2015-16. The ED started the investigation based on the CBI report. Properties worth Rs 4.81 crores owned by the Aam Aadmi Party leader and his family were attached by the Enforcement Directorate two months ago.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted after the arrest that the ED made a strategic move to influence the upcoming election in Himachal Pradesh. Jain is in charge of the region.

He wrote that a fake case has been running against Satyendar Jain for the past eight years. In between, the ED stopped calling because they did not get anything. "Now they started again because Satyendar Jain is the election in charge of Himachal".

Sisodia added that the BJP is losing badly in Himachal Pradesh. "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".

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in January had said his sources suspect Jain will be arrested by the ED. He added that the central agency is welcome to do so because the previous raids conducted by the Centre did not get any proof. He was speaking ahead of the Punjab elections.

Himachal Pradesh is currently ruled by the BJP and an election is to be held later this year. The Aam Aadmi Party is confidently looking forward to a victory after they won in Punjab.

Earlier, several opposition party leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Telangana's K Chandrashekar Rao have alleged that the BJP is using central agencies to harass them.