The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday searched the head office of the Congress party-owned National Herald newspaper here and 11 other locations as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation against the daily.
The Congress condemned the raids as “vendetta politics” and said the action was part of the continued attack on the country’s principal Opposition party.
ED officials searched the office of the National Herald located in the Herald House building at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg near ITO in Central Delhi. The office is registered in the name of AJL.
The premises of a shell company in Kolkata involved in the case was also searched during the day, officials said without naming the firm.
The move comes a week after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi was questioned by the agency in connection with the case.
The searches were conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to “gather additional evidence with regard to the trail of funds and they are against those entities who were involved in the National Herald-linked transactions”, officials said, adding the action was undertaken in the wake of fresh evidence that emerged after the latest round of questioning of various people.
The National Herald is published by the Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL), and its holding company is Young Indian.
Condemning the raids, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet, “The raids on Herald House, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, are a part of the continued attack against India’s principal Opposition -- Indian National Congress. We strongly condemn this vendetta politics against those who speak up against the Modi Govt”.
“This is political vendetta to ruin the image of Congress... The party will not tolerate these kinds of actions by the Government,” Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said, adding that the BJP-led Central Government wants to “suppress the voice of Congress and create fear”.
“You tell me, any single BJP leader has been arrested or raided- not one, and those who have been raided from various other parties, they were taken in the middle of the night, and today their interest are set and you know… to kill democracy… by doing this our many State Governments were destroyed, those States were elected by the people, people supported the Government, they purchased the MLAs and they are doing all these things. This is very bad for the democracy and also, they want to destroy the Constitution and now the Congress will fight that,” Kharge said talking to the media outside the Parliament.
Party MP Karti Chidambaram claimed that the ED has become a “weapon of mass destruction” and would be known as the “hatchet agency” of the Government. Comparing the ED with Stasi of East Germany and Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany, Karti said, “During the second world war, Stasi was used as hatchet agency for East Germany and Schutzstaffel by Nazi Germany. When the history of this country is written, the ED will be known as the hatchet agency of the BJP.”
“The ED has now become a weapon of mass destruction. And the entire exercise of the ED is only to embarrass or humiliate political opponents,” he alleged. He further said they are being harassed for the transactions which have been captured in the books of accounts and income tax returns filed.
“I can’t see any reason why an agency would want to raid premises after 12 years. Even by law, you’re not required to keep financial records beyond eight years. So this is only for the voyeuristic pleasure of certain people who want to see the Opposition being crushed, humiliated and harassed,” Karti said.
At the AICC press conference, party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the raids on the National Herald is a ploy to divert attention from price rise and unemployment. “In Independent India, there is perhaps no other Governmental and no other place, where politics has sunk to this rock bottom. To settle petty personal scores, to intimidate India’s Opposition, the Modi Government is doing exactly what the British did during the freedom struggle. During the freedom struggle, the British had banned and had raided the National Herald, that’s exactly what the Modi Government is doing,” Shrinate said.
“You have questioned the Congress President for three days, you have questioned the former Congress President for 50 hours. Either the ED is completely incompetent and has not been able to gather enough (evidence) or the ED has actually become the “Election Department” of the BJP and that seems to be exactly what the ED has reduced itself to,” she alleged.