With the Enforcement Directorate registering a money laundering case against former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Congress on Friday came out in his defence asserting that no wrong had been done and charged the BJP Governments at the Centre and in the State with misusing such agencies and unleashing "witch-hunt" and "political vendetta".
Denying any wrongdoing in acquisition of land in Manesar in Gurgaon, Hooda said, "No case is based on facts. It is purely politics of vendetta, vengeance and an attempt to defame us."
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said his party would not be cowed down by such cases.
Surjewala alleged the BJP Governments at the Centre and in the State were using various agencies as their "political extension" and "misusing" them.
Addressing a press conference jointly with Surjewala and former Haryana Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma, Hooda said that "modus operandi of the Haryana government is to register the case and then refer it to CBI."
He alleged that the BJP Government was misleading people by "hiding facts".
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has registered a money laundering case against Hooda and others in a case of alleged financial irregularities in acquisition of land in Gurgaons Manesar in which farmers were allegedly cheated to the tune of `1,500 crore.
The ED has filed a criminal complaint against the Congress leader based on a CBI FIR, under which the probe agency conducted searches in Haryana and the national Capital last week.
Hooda said that private persons are registering complaints "and at whose behest they are doing so, everyone knows this."
The two-time former CM said, "It is not prosecution, but naked persecution, which will boomerang on them. They cannot keep Congress or my voice down by such actions. CBI recently conducted searches, but it had to leave empty handed.”