New Delhi: The BJP on Friday dared Congress leaders facing corruption charges to seek quick and time-bound disposal of cases, as it slammed the party for citing politics as the reason behind the ED action against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.
The ruling BJP kept the heat on the opposition party after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) chargesheeted the Gandhis and accused the chief ministers of Congress-ruled states of “funnelling” public money as advertisements into the weekly newspaper which few read.
Former Union minister Anurag Thakur demanded that the details of the money spent on advertisements in the paper, which is printed weekly and runs a digital platform as well, by these Congress-ruled states be made public.
He claimed that the Congress used the newspaper as its ATM, alleging that the Gandhis sought to grab properties worth Rs 2,000 crore of the National Herald without investing a penny from their pockets.
Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi together owned 76 per cent of the Young Indian company which was, Thakur said, given a Rs 50 lakh loan by the Congress.
The company then took over the Associated Journals Limited, which owns the newspaper affiliated to the Congress, in lieu of Rs 90 crore it owed to the opposition party, the BJP leader said, asking if a political party can extend a loan.
“This is the Congress model of corruption. Chief ministers of Congress-ruled states don’t provide donations to the National Herald, instead they funnel money to it through advertisements. On what grounds are these advertisements being given,” Thakur asked.
“But this raises a serious question. Prominent daily newspapers with multiple editions across various districts receive barely any funding, while this weekly paper, National Herald, is handed a fortune,” he added.
To a question on the allegation that the ED action was “politically motivated”, Thakur dared the Congress leaders facing corruption charges to move courts to seek quick and time-bound trial in the cases against them.
“If they have guts, they should do it,” he said, adding that in the “Congress model of corruption”, the “thieves make a lot of noises”.
He also claimed that the National Herald case has stunned the Congress ecosystem into silence.
Thakur noted that the Gandhis moved the courts for quashing the probe against them several times since a lower court took cognisance of the matter before the Modi government came to power.
The courts gave them no relief except that they are on bail, he said, adding that the judiciary found no reason to interfere in the ED’s probe.
Turning to his home state Himachal Pradesh where the Congress is in power, Thakur accused the party of not fulfilling any of its 10 main promises but spending crores in advertisements in the National Herald.
“Does any Congress leader or member read it in Himachal,” he asked, demanding that people should be given details of the money spent by different Congress governments in advertisements in the newspaper, which is available digitally.
The Congress has been organising protests in different parts of the country against the ED action.
