National Herald case: ‘Those indulging in political vendetta have to bear consequences’— Congress warns BJP

Addressing media in Shimla, former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot said, “The country is being run through the ED,” adding that opposition leaders were being treated as “enemies” and investigating agencies are being pressured and misused to target them.

Gehlot said the nine-year-old “National Herald” case is being raked up now only to seek vengeance as “Rahul Gandhi highlights the failures of the government in Parliament” and it has “clearly rattled the ruling party”.

He said any opposition leader speaking against the government is immediately subjected to raids and legal action. Referring to the National Herald case, Gehlot said, “There is nothing illegal in it. The paper was launched during the freedom movement. To revive it, Rs 90 crore was given over 10 years to clear debts, and it continues to operate under a non-profit company. No one has benefited financially, so where is the irregularity?”

He said all the properties of National Herald are under the control of Associated Journals Limited (AJL) and efforts were being made to clear its liabilities through Young India Limited (YIL), a non-profit organisation.

He said the chargesheet filed by the ED hasn’t even been made public, yet it is being used to target the Gandhi family.

In Chandigarh, Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari said, “History is witness that nothing comes out of political vendetta and those who indulge in such vendetta have to bear the consequences. Actions taken on the basis of political vendetta do not have any head or tail”.

Addressing a press conference at the Punjab Congress Bhawan, along with senior party leaders including Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Capt Sandeep Sandhu, Tewari said that the National Herald case will come down crashing in the courts as there was nothing unlawful or illegal that was involved.

The Chandigarh MP said charges of money laundering are being levelled in a case where not a single penny or asset has been transferred.

Giving details of the case, he said, the AJL, which had been founded by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and other freedom fighters to bring out the newspapers like the National Herald, the Navjeevan and Qaumi Awaz, had run into massive losses and had accrued liabilities and outstandings of about Rs 90 crore.

“As is the standard corporate practice to clean the balance sheets, a new company Young Indian Limited (YIL) was incorporated. INC paid off the Rs 90 crore debt over 10 years of the AJL and acquired its shares. The shares were subsequently transferred to YIL in a standard corporate practice of debt swap,” he said.

Tewari pointed out that it is a standard legal practice to convert the debt into equity and that was done in the case of AJL too. He quoted the example of the Voda fone company, whose debt the Government of India converted into equity.

The MP also referred to Rs 16 lakh crore debt waiver to the corporates by various banks to clean up their balance sheets by taking very deep haircuts .

Challenging the contention that an attempt has been made to grab the AJL properties, Tewari said of the six properties the AJL owned across the country, only one was freehold while five others were on lease. “Nobody can sell those properties. Besides, the YIL, which has acquired the shares of the AJL, is a “not for profit” company, which means that even when it earns profits, it cannot give dividends to any shareholders nor can any of the directors be given any salary or any perks,” he said.

Tewari said the BJP government also knows that there is nothing in the case and it will not stand any legal scrutiny. But, he added, the government wants to build a perception by painting Congress leaders as money launderers.

Congress leaders have been holding press conferences in various cities after the ED charge-sheeted the Gandhis along with a few others.

The ED has alleged that a “criminal conspiracy” was carried out by Congress leaders to “usurp” properties worth Rs 2,000 crore of its public company Associated Journals Limited (AJL) by transferring 99 per cent shares to their private company — YIL — for just Rs 50 lakh, a firm where Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are the majority shareholders.