Senior Congress leader DK Shivakumar on Friday said the ED has issued fresh summons asking him to appear before it in a money laundering case and termed the action a 'conspiracy' to defame him and his party.

The former Karnataka minister said the Enforcement Directorate has asked him to appear before it in Delhi on Friday by 1 pm and he was considering all legal options. Shivakumar told reporters that he will face it "legally, politically and socially".

On whether he was feeling targeted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, he said "whoever has done... I wish them best... I have done my duty for the party. I'm proud to do my job. Whatever is in my fate will happen."

The ED move comes after the Karnataka High Court on Thursday dismissed Shivakumar's petition challenging the summons issued to him in the money-laundering case registered by the agency against him and a few others on the basis of an alleged tax evasion and hawala transactions case.

Shivakumar indicated that his "instrumental role" in ensuring safe stay of Gujarat Congress MLAs in a Karnataka resort during the Rajya Sabha polls in 2017, amid allegations that the BJP was trying to poach them, was the reason for the searches and subsequent I-T and ED action on him.

"When the ED summons came (earlier), I had said that this is an Income Tax case, ED has nothing to do with it, I have had no foreign transaction or was cheating the government, and have been paying taxes, there was no conspiracy involved," Shivakumar said.

Ahead of his travel to Delhi the Congress leader said that he had sought time and approached the court challenging the summons, but yesterday it dismissed his application.

Stating that he was yet to receive copy of the court order, he said, when he arrived home last night, ED officers from Delhi and Bengaluru came and issued the summons asking him to appear at 1 pm in Delhi on Friday.

"I cannot attend by 1 pm as I had family and personal commitments, but I will respect the summons and go to Delhi to appear before ED. I have all the right to use all my legal options to protect myself and respond to this conspiracy," Shivakumar said.