A day after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned India’s top three fashion designers — Manish Malhotra, Sabyasachi, and Ritu Kumar in connection with an alleged money laundering case against Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira, the Congress leader on Thursday debunked, trashed, and rejected the charges while maintaining that the payments were made in 2015-16 at the time of his daughter’s wedding.

Khaira urged the ED not to indulge in character assassination and malicious campaign to damage his public image, by releasing “selective information” to media about payments made to fashion designers. “It is nothing but an attempt to malign my public image and aimed at my character assassination,” said Khaira.

Khaira, the former Leader of Opposition, said that these payments, which are very nominal in terms of money, were made in the year 2015-16 at the time of the wedding of his daughter. “It is a normal practice of every family, particularly the Punjabis, to try and give their best to their children, particularly daughters at the time of their weddings. My family had purchased three wedding dresses in 2015-16 for my daughter and my family,” he added.

He said that the wedding dresses were in the range of about Rs seven to eight lakh in total, and the source of money paid to these fashion designers came from his agriculture limit or overdraft account in a bank at Jalandhar.

“I am amused by the charges flashed to the media as if I had paid crores of rupees to the said fashion designers, whereas the three dresses that my family purchased were of negligible cost…It is common knowledge that people buy very expensive wedding dresses sometimes to the tune of Rs 25-30 lakh or even more for may be one wedding dress, while I and my family had purchased only routine necessary wedding dresses,” he said.

Khaira said that he was saddened to note, that attempts were being made by ED to malign him and aimed at his character assassination by repeating the same old charges of fake passports and the NDPS case related to Fazilka.

“I once again reiterate that I was never named in the FIR, neither my name appeared in the challan report nor any recovery was made from me in the said NDPS Fazilka case,” he said.

Khaira said that it is an open secret, that the said NDPS case was slapped against him under a well-planned political vendetta drive after effective role as Leader of Opposition as a result one Minister had to resign from the Cabinet. Khaira said his name was dragged into the said NDPS case as an afterthought in the year 2017 when he was LoP, as those involved in the NDPS Fazilka case were arrested in the year 2015 and have been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, while the summons issued to him in the said Fazilka NDPS case have been stayed by the Supreme Court of India.