NEW DELHI: In a pattern of sorts, in which government agencies are actively pursuing allegations of corruption against opposition leaders, India’s Enforcement Directorate on Wednes­day summoned Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi for questioning in a money-laundering case linked to the National Herald newspaper, The Hindu said.

It quoted unnamed officials as saying the case was registered recently to probe alleged financial irregularities in the party-promoted Young Indian that owns the National Herald newspaper, which was founded by Jawharalal Nehru in 1937.

The move comes a day after revenue officials arrested Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain over an eight-year-old case of alleged money laundering. Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party has been under assault from Prime Minister Naren­dra Modi’s government in which corporate interests are said to be involved. The Hindu said, the agency wants to record the statements of Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The National Herald is published by Associated Journals Limited and owned by Young Indian Pvt Limited. The agency recently questioned Congress leaders Malli­karjun Kharge and Pawan Bansal as part of the investigation.

The Congress and the Gandhi family will miss the services of lawyer politician Kabil Sibar who has robustly defended them in the case, but who recently migrated to the Samajwadi Party to fight the Rajya Sabha polls.

The government had filed similar cases against a nephew of Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar, but dropped them as soon as he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party government. The case withdrawn, Ajit Pawar swiftly returned to his original alliance, leaving the BJP stranded. Another critic of corporate involvement in politics, the former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu was sent to jail for a year in a decades-old road rage case. A senior police officer who criticised Mr Modi’s role in the Gujarat pogrom is similarly in prison in an old case.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday called for defeating the BJP in the 2024 general election and said party’s politics of hate and violence will find “no entry” across the country.

Dubbing the BJP-led government at the Centre as “adulterated”, she accused it of mismanaging the country’s economy through decisions such as demonetisation and using central agencies to silence the opposition.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2022