A day after ED temporarily sealed Young India’s office located inside the National Herald building (Herald House) in Delhi, the Gandhi scion held a press conference at the party headquarters in the national capital. While addressing the media, Rahul Gandhi, who is being probed in the National Herald money laundering case, launched a frontal attack on the BJP government claiming that India is “witnessing the death of democracy.”
The remark came as the mother-son duo has been facing ED action for their alleged involvement in a massive ‘cheating and breach of trust’ in the acquisition of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) by Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YIL). Assets worth crores of rupees had been allegedly transferred for purposes other than originally intended for a paltry sum.
Claiming that the Gandhis are more than just a family, he slammed the BJP government at the centre for coming after the Gandhis as they are ‘fighting for their ideology’. “Why do they attack the Gandhi family? They do it because we fight for an ideology & there are crores of people like us. We fight for democracy, for communal harmony and we have been doing this for years. It’s not just me who did that, it has been happening for years,” said the Gandhi scion attacking the BJP government for ‘destroying democracy.’
My family sacrificed their lives. It’s our responsibility because we fight for this ideology. It hurts us when Hindus-Muslims are pitted against each other,when Dalits are killed,when a woman is thrashed. So, we fight. This isn’t just one family, this is an ideology: Rahul Gandhi pic.twitter.com/yDXphzRHms
— ANI (@ANI) August 5, 2022
“My family sacrificed their lives. It’s our responsibility because we fight for this ideology. It hurts us when Hindus-Muslims are pitted against each other when Dalits are killed when a woman is thrashed. So, we fight. This isn’t just one family, this is an ideology,” said the Gandhi scion.
The Directorate of Enforcement is a multi-disciplinary organization mandated the investigation of offences of money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws. The agency has initiated a probe against the Gandhis since it has found money trails in the National Herald-linked transactions, a newspaper owned by Rahul and Sonia Gandhi’s Young Indian Pvt Ltd.
The National Herald scam is one of the most notable legal cases in Indian history, as the Gandhis are directly accused. The Mother-Son duo of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, along with their aides – Oscar Fernandez, Motilal Vohra and Sam Pithroda are alleged to have been involved in massive ‘cheating and breach of trust’ in the acquisition of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) by Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YIL). Assets worth crores of rupees had been allegedly transferred for purposes other than originally intended for a paltry sum. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi got unconditional bail in December 2015.
Rahul Gandhi undoubtedly believes that his family is exempt from the law despite being linked to a multi-crore money laundering fraud, that’s probably why, the Congress prince sees any investigation into the ostensible ‘royal’ family as an “attack on democracy.”
It is notable here that Sonia and Rahul have received summons from the ED and have been called to answer their questions. It is not understood why the Congress prince considers himself above the law and instead of answering the ED’s questions, he is trying to insinuate that by merely asking them to appear before ED, the democratic process and values of the country are being violated.
Gandhi scion’s farce over communal harmony
However, the Gandhi scion did not end there. In an effort to criticise the BJP leadership, the Wayanad MP continued to claim that in Modi’s India Hindus-Muslims are being pitted against each other. So, essentially, what Rahul Gandhi does here, is that in order to portray himself and his party as flag bearers of ‘communal harmony’ completely undermine the vicious attacks that have happened on Hindus in recent days.
The leader of a party which voted for India’s partition on communal lines, the party that was in power for decades while the nation continued to see dozens of communal riots, including the Sikh genocide of 1984, trying to allege that ‘communal tension’ is the fault of the BJP, is rather laughable.
While Rahul Gandhi alleges ‘democracy in danger’ just because he and his mother have been inconvenienced by the ED summons, their party has been showing surprising haste when it comes to undermining democracy and freedom of expression. The long history of Congress governments silencing media and critics is testimony to that.
So, while the Congress prince is currently not in vacation mode and is in India for a change, he is probably trying to cash in on his presence to the maximum, by claiming false victimhood. However, he only manages to display his own smug entitlement, in trying to guilt trip the country for ‘not accepting’ the Gandhi family as their default leaders. The very idea that the Gandhi-Nehru descendants are somehow above the law and the country owes them gratitude, is one of the main reasons the family has been rejected by the public election after election.
