The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar for questioning in its ongoing money laundering probe into the Congress party-owned National Herald newspaper.
Shivakumar has been asked to depose before the agency on October 7 in Delhi, officials said. The 60-year-old former Cabinet minister was last questioned by the agency on September 19 in Delhi in another money laundering case linked to alleged possession of disproportionate assets.
The latest summons comes at a time when the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ of the Congress party, led by its leader Rahul Gandhi, entered Karnataka on Friday, September 30, and will be in the state for 21 days.
Shivakumar is involved in the conduct of this leg of the yatra. While exiting the ED office after his questioning last month, he had told the waiting mediapersons that he has been charge-sheeted by the agency in one money laundering case but he does not know what is the new case (disproportionate assets) against him.
“Surprisingly, they (ED officials) have asked me about the payment from one of my trusts from me and my brother to Young Indian,” he had told reporters.
Young Indian is the company that owns the news organization National Herald.
Shivakumar also said he has sought more time from the agency to furnish details about his assets and liabilities to them. The former Karnataka minister said he believed in the “law system” and knew that he would get justice.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, her MP son Rahul Gandhi and senior Congress leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal have been questioned by the ED over the last few months in the National Herald money laundering
case.