New Delhi: Officers of Delhi’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) on Tuesday (August 18) night arrested Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former minister Satyendar Jain along with five others in a case alleging corruption in the upgradation of the city’s sewage treatment plants.The AAP leadership reacted by alleging that Jain was arrested at the Narendra Modi government’s behest because he is in charge of the party’s strategy for the Punjab assembly elections, which are due by February next year.For its part the BJP alleged that the corruption case is an indictment of former chief minister and incumbent AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s government in Delhi, and claimed that Jain “will definitely be punished”.According to an ACB statement quoted in the media, officers arrested Jain, IAS officer and former Delhi Jal Board (DJB) CEO Udit Prakash Rai and four others in connection with the corruption case, which was lodged in May 2024 against a complaint by the Directorate of Vigilance.In its case, the vigilance directorate has alleged that the Delhi administration colluded with private entities up to 2022 to rig the tendering process for upgrading ten sewage treatment plants in favour of a company called Euroteck Environment Pvt Ltd. Raja Kumar Kurra, the firm’s proprietor, was among those arrested on Tuesday.It has also alleged that Rai received a bribe of Rs 1.52 crore in bank accounts belonging to him and his relatives in furtherance of the ‘scam’.The case invokes provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act pertaining to bribing and unduly influencing a public servant as well as criminal misconduct by a public servant.Earlier the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which opened a parallel money laundering investigation in the case, had questioned and chargesheeted Jain, who was water minister until early 2023.AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said that the DJB case is fake and that Jain’s arrest was motivated by the upcoming Punjab elections.“See, Satyendar Jain is co-in-charge for Punjab, where elections are coming up. This is why the BJP’s agencies have become active again. But just like how the old cases against us turned out – where AAP leaders were discharged and the case was not even found worthy of being framed – the same will happen here,” Kakkar said, referring to the Delhi liquor policy case against the party’s leaders.Kejriwal and AAP MP Sanjay Singh also called the DJB case fake and blamed Jain’s arrest on the Modi government.Harsh Malhotra, president of the BJP’s Delhi unit, said in a statement that Jain “will definitely be punished” in the case.“The STP scam and the arrests in it have made it clear why, in ten years of the Kejriwal government, not a single STP was installed on any drain, and why the Yamuna became polluted over ten years. Arvind Kejriwal should come forward and admit the crime of his government. The law will take a little time, but Satyendar Jain will definitely be punished,” said Malhotra.Jain was previously in the spotlight when the ED arrested him in a separate money laundering case in May 2022. After being enlarged on interim medical bail in 2023, he was again taken into custody before being bailed in October 2024.