New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday summoned all its lawmakers from across the country to reach the national capital by night in order to prepare for a big show of strength over ED summons to the Gandhis and the Agnipath defence jobs scheme.
“All the MLAs and MLCs have been asked to reach Delhi tonight,” said a senior AICC functionary. The move to summon the MLAs comes days after the grand old party gathered all its MPs and state leaders in Delhi to protest against the ED’s questioning of Rahul Gandhi, which continued for the fifth day on Tuesday. Rahul is being interrogated in relation to the National Herald alleged money laundering case.
“Fourth day, 40 hours; fifth day, 55 hours; today, I am sure, he will cross the half-century mark, if at all, there is no sixth day. In the light of all this, clearly, the troubling and the harassment of Rahul Gandhi is an outcome of BJP’s fight, fray and fuss with him personally. It is an outcome of the vendetta politics,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.
He wondered if the National Herald case, in which all the financial transactions have been done through cheques and the records are available with the government, does merit questioning Rahul for such long hours. “There is no illegal transfer of money and no illegal transfer of property in the case,” said Singhvi, a senior Supreme Court advocate.
“I have in my entire experience of a diverse area of law never seen investigative agencies in a case like this, of this nature, or degree, never ever seen calling someone for five days, for roughly 10-12 hours of questioning each day,” he said.
Another party veteran and a senior advocate Salman Khurshid said: “I don’t know why the case was revived after it was closed in 2015. If this is not legal, it is political vendetta.”
The party’s attempts to express solidarity with Rahul have met with police action since June 13, when the former Congress chief appeared before the ED for the first time. He was back at the agency’s office on Monday after a few days of break granted to him due to the ill health of his mother and party chief Sonia Gandhi, who returned from hospital on Monday and now also needs to appear before the ED in the same case on June 23. “She will appear if health permits,” said party insiders.
Party sources said they were preparing for an adequate response as the targeting of the leadership was likely to continue for a while. During the short weekend break of protests, the party had confined itself to Delhi’s iconic Jantar Mantar, where several party leaders slammed the Centre over the Agnipath defence recruitment scheme and urged the government to withdraw the controversial plan.
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Though the Agnipath protests did provide a breather to the Congress strategists, it was realized that they need to scale up demonstrations over the ED issue, which was a plan to discredit the party’s high command.
Party insiders further said that in case Sonia Gandhi had to appear before the probe agency on June 23, the party needed to display aggression similar to the levels staged on June 13, when Rahul decided to walk from his official residence to the ED office, around a kilometre away.
Citing reasons why they felt the need to scale up protests, the party insiders said that heavy police and Rapid Action Force deployment outside the party headquarters since Tuesday morning and the rough treatment meted out to the senior leaders was an indicator of atrocities to come.
“We will walk silently and wherever we are stopped we will protest peacefully in a Gandhian way,” AICC in-charge of Delhi Shakti Sinh Gohil told party leaders before the Satyagraha march. By evening, scores of party leaders had been detained and sent to various police stations across the city. "We will not be cowed down by this," said Gohil.
