Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are in an overdrive to justify demonetisation, the party faced an embarrassment in Modi's home state of Gujarat when brother of a saffron party's corporator in Vadodara was arrested with old notes worth Rs 31 lakh. The notes are in the denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.
According to highly placed sources, Vaikunth Pawar, younger brother of BJP corporator Vijay Pawar, was arrested by the Detection of Crime Branch on Tuesday.
Vijay has been with the BJP for a long time and is a first time corporator in the Vadodara Municipal Corporation.
Sources claimed that Vaikunth was also a BJP worker and was into building construction and also ran a weekly. Sources said that in the past he had been arrested on several charges like posing as a policeman on the highway and demanding money from people.
The DCB arrested him following a tip off. He is being interrogated to find out as to where he got the money from.
Both the brothers are believed to be close to a first time MLA from Vadodara.
BJP's Vadodara unit president and Vadodara MP Ranjanben Bhatt told THE WEEK that she was in New Delhi and that Vaikunth was not a party worker.