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This is India, not Italy, says Karnataka minister on Congress’s stir over Rahul’s ED questioning
“They are acting as they (Congress) can never do any wrong and whatever they do is right. There is a law of the land. This is not Italy, this is India, where we have a Constitution. There is a complaint, a notice has been issued and an investigation is underway, which is very common. It is not correct to politicise this,” Ashoka said.
Karnataka minister for revenue and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader R Ashoka said on Tuesday said that the Congress party was trying to subvert the Constitution by trying to shield Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case, which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is currently investigating.
“They are acting as they (Congress) can never do any wrong and whatever they do is right. There is a law of the land. This is not Italy, this is India, where we have a Constitution. There is a complaint, a notice has been issued and an investigation is underway, which is very common. It is not correct to politicise this,” Ashoka said.
His statements come even as Congress workers across the country protested for the second consecutive day against the ED questioning of Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.
“The Congress is carrying out the protest drama in the National Herald case. ED is an independent investigating agency. The complaint was made by Subramaniyam Swamy against the Congress leaders and not the party,” he added.
People familiar with the matter said Gandhi, 51, was asked questions about the acquisition of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) by Young Indian Private Ltd (YI), in which he is a 38% shareholder; operations of National Herald; a loan of ₹90.21 crore given by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to AJL; and transactions related to the development of a property in Mumbai on the first day of questioning on Monday.
ED’s probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is based on an Income Tax department investigation, completed in 2017, which was based on a private complaint filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in 2012.
Swamy accused the Gandhis of using party funds to purchase AJL, which was published National Herald newspaper. He claimed that ₹90.21 crore were transferred from AICC to AJL at zero interest; that YI received 92 million shares of AJL, and that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra purchased additional shares to gain full control of the company.
Officials familiar with the probe said Rahul Gandhi was also asked why AICC gave a ₹90 crore loan to AJL when it was not in a position to return it.
“Successive governments have given thousands of crores worth of property and grants to this paper, which was started by freedom fighters. And there is a complaint that this paper and its holdings are being encroached on by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. It is against the family and not the Congress party. But to protect the assets of one family, the Congress is trying to project it as an attack against the party,” Ashoka said.
DK Shivakumar, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, hit back at the BJP government and even likened the entire episode to an ‘emergency’.
“BJP is doing all of this. Is this an emergency? Is this a democratic government? Protest is our right,” Shivakumar said in Bengaluru.
He said that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul, have done nothing wrong but were being targeted by the BJP government.
“This kind of low-level politics is not there anywhere in the country,” he said.
“This is not an emergency but a far bigger issue, and we condemn it. We will continue to protest it, and our leaders have done no wrong,” he added.
