After Questioning Sonia Gandhi for 3 Days, ED Raids 10 Locations Linked to National Herald

On Tuesday, the Enforcement Directorate raided nearly ten locations associated with the National Herald, including its headquarters in New Delhi. Young India Limited, a company founded by Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, owns the newspaper.

Officials stated that the searches are being conducted in accordance with the criminal provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in order to “gather additional evidence regarding the trail of funds.”

Federal agents also searched the ‘Herald House’ office on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, ITO in central Delhi. The address is registered in the name of the newspaper’s publisher, Associated Journals Ltd.

In this case, the ED has recently questioned Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi, as well as a few other Congress politicians.

The mother-son team is accused of misusing party funds to acquire valuable real estate through a complicated financial transaction. The Gandhis have denied the charges.

The National Herald was a newspaper founded in 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru and other freedom fighters. It was intended to express the concerns of the Indian National Congress’s liberal faction. After independence, this newspaper, published by Associated Journals Limited (AJL), became a mouthpiece for the Congress party.

The AJL also published two other newspapers, one in Hindi and one in Urdu. The newspaper went out of business in 2008, with a debt of more than Rs 90 crore. It was relaunched as a digital publication in 2016 and is now widely regarded as a mouthpiece for Congress.

Last week, Sonia Gandhi was questioned for three days in connection with the case. According to officials, after the third day of questioning on July 27, Sonia had been questioned for more than 11 hours over three days and had to answer approximately 100 questions. Her first round of questioning was on July 21, and the second round was last Tuesday.

The Congress chief is understood to have stuck to the party’s position that no personal acquisition of assets was made in the Associated Journals Limited (AJL)-Young Indian deal and that the routine affairs were handled by other office bearers, including late Motilal Vora.

The officials said the agency is likely to soon file a charge sheet in the case in which the statements of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders Pawan Bansal and Mallikarjun Kharge will be annexed. Bansal and Kharge have been questioned by the ED in the past.

In the same case, Rahul Gandhi was questioned by the ED for approximately 50 hours over five days in June. Sonia was summoned for questioning at the same time, but her case was postponed after she tested positive for Covid-19.