National Herald case: BJP dismisses Congress charge of vendetta, says law will take its course

“Whenever the issue of taking action against this family’s corruption arises, or rather, as soon as the name National Herald is mentioned, the prince and the royal family are struck dumb with fear. Look at the wheel of time—those who conspired to frame others as accused are themselves out on bail today,” Pradhan said.

“Is this royal family above the country’s constitution and law?” the minister asked, adding that the government of Prime minister Narendra Modi would not spare any corrupt person.

Former law minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said the law will take its own course in the case. “National Herald was started in 1937 and it had 5,000 shareholders. It has never been the property of the Nehru-Gandhi family. People who were freedom fighters, leaders of the Congress and chief ministers contributed to it,” he said.

“Its publication stopped in 2008. After that the Congress gave Rs 90 crore to Associated Journals Ltd, which published the newspaper. A political party cannot give party funds to a private body, it is prohibited,” he said.

Prasad added, “They formed a company called Young Indian – with 38% shares being held by Sonia Gandhi and 38% by Rahul Gandhi. Rs 9 crore worth of equity shares were transferred to Young Indian. After that the entire property of Associated Journals Ltd in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bhopal and Patna worth thousands of crores came to Young Indian Ltd. It was said that it is a charitable organisation, but it’s not known till today what charity they have done. After complaints, the ED investigated the matter,” the BJP leader explained.

The ED, Prasad said, had interrogated the late Motilal Vohra and Pawan Bansal, and also Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

Young Indian, he said, wrote off a Rs 90 crore loan that the Congress gave to AJL and got the ownership of the company with a paltry investment of Rs 50 lakh. “That is the Gandhi model of development, and I don’t mean Mahatma Gandhi here,” he said.

Prasad said that the ED had filed a report under the Money Laundering Act.

“The court will now hear it on April 25. We should remember that Sonia and Rahul are out on bail, that they moved the Supreme Court but got no relief except exemption from personal appearance,” he added.

Prasad asserted, “If public property worth thousands of crores is misappropriated, then why are you protesting and calling it vendetta? The law will take its own course.”

He alleged that a newspaper promoted by the Congress could not flourish because it was used as a forum to collect ads and acquire huge property.

BJP spokesperson and MP Sudhanshu Trivedi said: “A company with thousands of crores of property was sold for Rs 90 crore. And the buyers and sellers were the same.”