The BJP took a potshot at Delhi minister Satyendar Jain after he reportedly cited “post- COVID-19 memory loss” when asked about documents relating to alleged hawala transactions during interrogation by the ED in a money laundering case.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has reportedly told a trial court in Delhi that Jain had claimed that he had lost his memory due to the effect of COVID-19 during his questioning.
Taking a jibe at Jain, Union minister and BJP leader Anurag Thakur questioned Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for keeping such a person in his cabinet and wondered how he could run the departments under him.
“I wonder how people who lose their memory continue in some governments and remain as ministers…. Kejriwal ji has kept such ministers who have memory loss,” Thakur told reporters after a cabinet briefing.
Thakur also wondered how Jain could remember people in Himachal Pradesh, where he is the in-charge of party affairs.
“I would also like to tell the people of Himachal Pradesh that the AAP has made such an in-charge who does not have good memory and tomorrow he would not even remember someone who meets him,” the Union minister said.
BJP leader Priti Gandhi said that the AAP leader pretended that he has lost his memory to “evade ED questions”.
“To evade answering ED’s questions, Kejriwal’s blue-eyed boy, Satyendar Jain is now pretending that he has lost his memory!! The Aam Aadmi Party minister has been accused of laundering over Rs 16 crore through hawala transactions with the help of his wife, daughters & aides,” she tweeted.
Earlier today, the court reserved its order against the bail plea of Jain. Special Judge Geetanjali Goel reserved the order after hearing arguments from the AAP leader as well the ED.
The AAP minister was arrested by the ED on May 30 on money laundering charges in a case linked to alleged illegal financial transactions. The arrest sparked a political slugfest between the AAP and the BJP-ruled central government with the Delhi’s ruling party alleging that the case was “completely false”.
The probe agency had taken Jain into custody under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He is currently in judicial custody.
Last week, more than Rs 2 crore cash and gold weighing 1.8 kg were seized by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after raids the premises of Jain and those linked to him, in a money laundering case.
The ED last month attached assets worth Rs 4.81 crore of the family and companies “beneficially owned and controlled” by the Delhi minister in the money laundering case related to a Kolkata-based company.
The ED filed the money laundering case against the AAP minister based on an FIR registered by the CBI in August 2017 against him and others on charges of alleged possession of disproportionate assets.
