National Herald Case: ED Raids Young Indian Office, Kharge Questioned for 8 Hrs

The ED had summoned Kharge to be present during raids at the office as he is the principal officer of the company.

National Herald House.

(Photo: PTI)

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge left Herald House after being questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for around eight hours on Thursday, 4 August, in connection with the National Herald money laundering case.

Earlier in the day, the ED conducted raids at the Young Indian office in Herald House, and summoned Kharge to be present as he is the principal officer of the company.

"Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has been undergoing interrogation by the ED for the last four and a half hours. His ordeal is continuing. The entire Congress party stands with him in solidarity," Jairam Ramesh, Congress General Secretary in-charge of Communications, had tweeted.

Kharge had reached the Herald House at Delhi's Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg around 12:40 pm, PTI reported.

Officials had said that a search of the premises will be carried out and any available evidence will be collected.

Jairam Ramesh Calls ED's Actions 'Pure Harassment' 

Congress MP and party spokesperson Jairam Ramesh further slammed the actions by the ED as "pure harassment."

"The Modi government has created this drama before Congress's protest rally tomorrow in all states against inflation, unemployment and GST on edibles," he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Earlier, Ramesh had tweeted that Kharge was supposed to host a dinner for the Opposition's vice-presidential candidate Margaret Alva, but had not been allowed to leave by the ED.

"Mallikarjun Kharge was supposed to be hosting a dinner for common Opposition candidate for Vice President Smt Margaret Alva at 7:30 pm today. And he is still with ED. This is height of political vendetta by Modi Sarkar!," Ramesh had said in the tweet.

On Wednesday, the central agency had temporarily sealed the office of Young Indian to "preserve evidence." The ED said that it was unable to search the premises in the last two days since it was locked, and the authorised persons were not available at the time.

The sealing in Central Delhi's Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg has been ordered amid a money laundering probe against Congress mouthpiece National Herald. Sonia Gandhi had been questioned by the ED in the case last week.

'Intimidation Attempt by Modi Government': Rahul Gandhi

Speaking on the ED's probe into the National Herald case, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday that it was merely an "intimidation attempt" by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government.

"They think they will be able to silence us with a little pressure. We won't be intimidated. We are not scared of Narendra Modi. They can do whatever they want," Gandhi stated.

Meanwhile, all MPs from the Congress met on Thursday at the Congress Parliamentary Party office to "discuss the future strategy of the party."

The Congress also moved an adjournment motion in Parliament on Thursday over Wednesday's incident.

The fresh raids come two days after the agency conducted raids at several locations linked to the newspaper on Tuesday – in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Lucknow.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi had been questioned in connection with the money laundering case on 27 July. The interim Congress chief was summoned for interrogation in the case on three separate days. Before that, in June, her son Rahul Gandhi was questioned for over 50 hours in the same case.

The two Congress leaders are among the promoters and majority shareholders in Young Indian. Like her son, Sonia Gandhi has 38 percent shareholding in the firm.

(With inputs from PTI and ANI.)