Rahul Gandhi questioned by ED for 10 hours on Day 2, summoned again on Wednesday

Rahul Gandhi was questioned by officials of the Enforcement Directorate for 10 hours On Day 2, and was summoned again on Wednesday. The Congress leader had asked ED officers to complete the questioning today itself however late it gets, but the agency declined it, asking him to appear again, said sources. On Tuesday, Gandhi was questioned for 10 hours after he arrived at the agency’s office accompanied by his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and his questioning began at 11:30 am.

After a session of about four hours, he took a break for about an hour at around 3:30 pm and went home. He rejoined the questioning around 4:30 pm. The questioning on Tuesday, the second day of his appearance before the probe agency in the alleged money-laundering case, continued well past 9 pm.

Officials said he has been called again as the questioning and the recording of a statement are taking a long time. Rahul Gandhi was questioned for more than 10 hours yesterday in an alleged money laundering case connected to the National Herald newspaper. The Congress has alleged that the BJP-led Union was indulging in ‘vendetta politics’.

Earlier in the day, several Congress leaders, including K C Venugopal and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, were detained for violating prohibitory orders outside the heavily barricaded party headquarters. Ahead of his questioning by the ED, Gandhi had joined senior party leaders at a dharna at the Congress headquarters, where the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel — were also present. All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was also present at the protest at the Congress headquarters, along with party MPs and workers.

Several Congress leaders were detained by the Delhi Police and taken to different police stations. Some leaders, including MPs, were not even allowed to enter the AICC headquarters and were taken away in police vans to different police stations. Lok Sabha MP Manickam Tagore said he and some other leaders, including P L Punia, were not allowed to enter the Akbar Road party office and were detained at the Mandir Marg police station.

Among the other leaders detained were Randeep Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh, Gaurav Gogoi, Deepender Singh Hooda, Ranjeet Ranjan, Jeby Mather, Imran Pratapgarhi, Youth Congress chief B V Srinivas and National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) chief Neeraj Kundan, with some of them even roughed up. Gehlot questioned the ED summonses to Rahul Gandhi and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and their questioning in the case, which he claimed has nothing in it and is part of “vendetta”. The veteran Congress leader said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should instead focus on governance and not target opposition leaders.

Baghel described the ED action as a result of “political bias” and “malicious”. It is nothing but “political vendetta” and the case has no grounds for investigation, the Chhattisgarh chief minister said. “The BJP government at the Centre should say whether any action has been taken against a leader of any pro-BJP party in the last eight years.

The moment someone joins the BJP, all the cases against him get hushed up. The ED, the CBI, the IT department are used to suppress the voice of the opposition,” he said. Venugopal said this is nothing but “political vendetta” by the Modi government, which is trying to defame the Congress leadership through “false cases”.

“They can imprison us but they cannot imprison the truth. The fight for truth shall go on,” he added. The Congress has said it will not be cowed down by intimidatory tactics of arrests or “false” cases against its top leaders.

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