Thursday, 24 April 2025
Thursday, 24 April 2025
The ruling BJP Wednesday rejected Congress' allegations of vendetta after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a chargesheet against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case, asserting that no one has a "license to loot” as Congress workers staged protests outside the party's headquarters on Akbar Road.
Senior BJP leader and former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “The law will take its own course under the Modi government. We condemn the threats from the Congress”, Prasad said adding…“As the 76 per cent shareholder of Young Indian, the Gandhis misappropriated thousands of crores of real estate owned by the Associated Journals Limited.”
Dismissing the opposition’s claims of vendetta, he further added: “The Congress has the right to hold dharnas, but that right does not extend to misappropriating public properties given by the government to the National Herald.”
He also alleged that a newspaper that was established in the freedom struggle to espouse the voice of those fighting British imperialism degenerated into a money-minting exercise for the Congress party establishment. “This is the Gandhi model of development”, he said.
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said: “Nothing has happened in the past 12 years, it's a 12-year-old case. They have filed a money laundering case where a single penny has not been exchanged. The reality is that the government has been trying to nail down the Gandhi family and the Congress. But we will fight them tooth and nail.”
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posted on X: “Politics of vendetta and intimidation by the PM and the HM gone completely berserk.”
“Seizing the assets of the National Herald is a state-sponsored crime masquerading as the rule of law”, he added.
In another long post in Hindi, AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh issued an explanation of the financial loan given to AJL, the company running National Herald, and termed as false the charges that Young Indian has taken over Rs 5,000 crore of properties of Associated Journals.
"You have been in power for 11 years, you have no evidence, no proof, nothing - otherwise you would not have been forced to wait for the 365th day.
"This shows not only the government's panic but also their mental and moral bankruptcy. Modi ji, this is the Congress party. The blood of Rahul ji and Sonia Gandhi's own people is mixed in the soil of this country, show these false threats to someone else," Ramesh said.
Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said the Congress party, which has consistently faced such politics of hatred, will once again respond with the strength of truth and justice.
"The Modi-led Government has long been misusing the ED — a supposedly autonomous investigative agency — as a political weapon to target opposition leaders. In the latest instance, it has invoked baseless allegations of financial irregularities in the National Herald case to continue its campaign of political vendetta," the chief minister alleged.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a chargesheet on April 9 naming Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi as accused in a money laundering case related to the National Herald newspaper.
The prosecution complaint, filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), also includes Congress leaders Sam Pitroda, Suman Dubey, and corporate entities Young Indian Pvt Ltd and Dotex Merchandise Pvt Ltd.
The ED alleges a criminal conspiracy involving the misappropriation of over Rs 2,000 crore, with the Gandhis holding a 76 per cent stake in Young Indian.
The ED action came hours after businessman Robert Vadra, husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi, was summoned in another money laundering case involving Haryana land deal
Senior BJP leader and former Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad minced no words during a media briefing. Prasad cited Robert Vadra’s controversial land deals, describing them as part of a broader pattern of impropriety:
“Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra pocketed a huge profit in a land deal in Haryana with the collusion of the then Congress government in the state.”
The matter is scheduled for hearing on April 25.
The case was initiated by Subramanian Swamy in 2014.
