New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday, June 1, summoned Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in a money laundering case related to the National Herald newspaper.
Sonia Gandhi has been asked to appear before the agency on June 8.
The case was registered recently to probe alleged financial irregularities in the party-promoted Young Indian that owns the National Herald newspaper.
The agency, officials told PTI, wants to record the statements of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The National Herald is published by Associated Journals Limited (AJL) and owned by Young Indian Pvt Limited.
The agency recently questioned senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal as part of the investigation.
The ED on May 30, arrested Delhi health minister and Aam Aadmi Party’s Satyendar Jain in a five-year-old money laundering case which had arisen out of a First Information Report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in August 2017.
The Congress has said that the ED’s decision to issue summons to the former and present party chief an act of political vendetta.
जब कांग्रेस अंग्रेज हुकूमत के अत्याचारों से नहीं डरी, तो ED का नोटिस सोनिया गांधी जी, राहुल गांधी जी और कांग्रेस पार्टी की हिम्मत को क्या ख़ाक तोड़ पाएगा।
हम लड़ेंगे…हम जीतेंगे…हम झुकेंगे नहीं…हम डरेंगे नहीं।
— Congress (@INCIndia) June 1, 2022
“This conspiracy is the work of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ED which is under his control,” spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a press conference.
“The Modi government has been driven blind by political vendetta and in an effort to distract from the issues of the day,” he added.
“I want to make it clear at the outset that the fake issue of AJL is an attempt by BJP’s propaganda machinery to deviate, diverge and digress the attention of citizens from the multifarious vital issues of inflation, falling GDP and social unrest,” Abhishek Manu Singhvi said at the press conference.