New Delhi: The Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Congress leader and former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu on Monday evening for alleged irregularities in awarding a contract for transporting foodgrain.


He was arrested from Ludhiana, official sources said.


Ashu's arrest came hours after he along with other senior Punjab Congress leaders "presented" themselves at the Vigilance Bureau office in Mohali, saying it could detain any of them as they were fed up with the AAP government in Punjab levelling corruption allegations against them.


Ashu, who is the Congress' state unit working president, is the second minister of the previous government in the state to be arrested. In June, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested former minister and Congress leader Sadhu Singh Dharamsot on corruption charges.


The Congress' Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu said Ashu was picked by the Vigilance Bureau from Ludhiana when he was in a saloon.


According to an official statement earlier, "a case was registered against former minister of food, civil supplies and consumer affairs Bharat Bhushan Ashu on Friday in the scam of allotting transportation tenders on fake registration numbers of vehicles".


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An inquiry is underway and more officials of the food and civil supplies department are under the scanner, it had stated.


The Punjab Vigilance Bureau last week said it has registered a case against three persons of a firm and some officials of the state food and civil supplies department for alleged irregularities in the allotment of tenders for labour, cartage and transportation for lifting foodgrains in Ludhiana.


During the investigation, it was found that at the time of submitting tenders for the year 2020-21 for labour, cartage and transportation works in Ludhiana, the lists of vehicles submitted by some contractors had registration numbers of scooters, motorcycles and cars which were not verified by the officials due to alleged criminal connivance with each other, the bureau has alleged.


On Monday, Punjab Congress leaders, including its chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, protested outside the Vigilance Bureau office in Mohali accusing the AAP government of indulging in "vendetta and witch-hunt in Punjab" to divert attention from the heat the party is facing from probe agencies in Delhi.


Besides Ashu and Warring, former ministers Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Rana Gurjeet Singh were among those present at the protest.


(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)