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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was questioned for the second day on Tuesday by the Enforcement Directorate on his alleged role in the National Herald case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The Congress continued to cry foul, accusing the government of attempting to muzzle the lone voice that speaks for people and farmers. The Wayanad MP reached the ED office again this morning. , On Monday the probe agency had questioned him for over ten hours till late night in the money laundering case. The former Congress president was allowed to take a lunch break at around 3.45 pm and he returned to face the investigators forty-five minutes later, said ED sources.
The probe team, under the supervision of a joint director level officer, is said to have given a set of queries to ascertain Rahul and his mother Sonia Gandhi’s role in the functioning of party’s newspaper National Herald. He was reportedly also asked about Dotex Merchandise Pvt Ltd which is alleged to have paid ₹1 crore to Young Indian, which owns National Herald, as a loan in 2010.
Union minister Smriti Irani had also sought to know from Congress on Monday what was Gandhi family’s alleged relations with hawala operator Dotex Merchandise, which is a Kolkota-based company.
Police imposed section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) since Monday to quell the possibility of crowding and protests outside the ED office. Congress workers and top leaders including chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel and other leaders such as Harish Rawat and Randeep Singh Surjewala were detained.
They accused the police of manhandling them. A political slugfest continued between the Congress and the BJP with union minister Anurag Thakur demanding that Rahul Gandhi should first give right answers to ED on serious charges of corruption against him.
Sonia Gandhi, who is hospitalised, has also been summoned by ED to appear in the same case on June 23. The agency is probing shareholding pattern, transfer of assets of Associated Journals Limited (AJL), which published the newspaper, to YIL to ascertain Congress leaders’ alleged involvement under the PMLA.
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