Congress leader and Punjab’s former Deputy Chief Minister OP Soni was arrested by the state Vigilance Department for allegedly accumulating assets disproportionately to his known sources of income between 2016 and 2022.

OP Soni was arrested from Chandigarh and was taken to Amritsar, where he will be produced in court on Monday.

An official spokesperson of the vigilance bureau (VB) said a case was registered under Sections 13 (1) (b) and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act at VB police station in Amritsar Range against OP Soni following investigations in an inquiry, which was ordered on October 10, 2022, ANI reported.

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The spokesperson further said between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2022, the income of the former deputy CM and his family was Rs 4.52 crore while the expenditure was Rs 12.48 crore which was Rs 7.96 crore or 176.08 per cent more than his known sources of income. During this period, OP Soni had made properties in the name of his wife Suman Soni and son Raghav Soni, he added. Further investigations in the case are underway.

Earlier, Soni had appeared before the VB in Amritsar and joined the investigation. Before demitting his office, he had promised to give the bureau all details of his moveable and immovable properties.

The investigation is a result of an anonymous complaint the bureau had received accusing Soni of amassing properties beyond his known sources of income, ANI reported.

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Soni is the fourth former Congress minister to be arrested. The VB has already arrested former ministers Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Bharat Bhushan Ashu and Sunder Sham Arora.

The former Punjab Deputy CM is among 10 former ministers of the Congress, including former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Brahm Mohindra, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Sunder Sham Arora, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Vijay Inder Singla and Sangat Singh Gilzian, who are facing VB probes for corruption.

The bureau is also conducting probes against five former Congress MLAs -– Dalvir Singh Goldy, Kuldeep Vaid, Satkar Kaur, Madan Lal Jalalpur and Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon.

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The Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government has said it has a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and will proceed in accordance with law against anyone who indulges in any wrongdoing.