Congress workers today staged protests at several places and burnt effigies of the Prime Minister in Madhya Pradesh against the petition filed against the party president Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi and others in the high-voltage National Herald case.
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Bail bonds for all the accused – Sonia, Rahul, Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes and Suman Dubey – were kept ready.
I am happy the we could make the Gandhis stand in the court like any other citizen, and its a big victory, Swamy told NDTV.
Amid enthusiastic chants by Congress men and women, Sonia Gandhi said, “I don’t have slightest of doubt that truth will prevail”.
Later in the day, Sonia said, “Today we had appeared before the court with a clean conscience”. “And it is using government agencies to do that”.
Accusing the Modi government of misusing various state agencies to target the Opposition, Sonia said, “Nobody is going to be scared from it. Modiji levels false allegations and thinks that the Opposition will bow down, I and the Congress party will not succumb”.
PM Narendra Modi is falsely accusing us, Rahul Gandhi had told media. Azad and his Lok Sabha counterpart Mallikarjun Kharge said the Congress has full faith in the judiciary to get justice as it has full faith right from the Supreme Court to the lowest court.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi talking to mediapersons at the AICC headquarters after getting bail from the Patiala House Court in the National Herald case, in New Delhi on Saturday. The Gandhis belong to the Gandhi-Nehru clan that has given India three prime ministers and is considered India’s top political dynasty. “It seemed that they were not accused in a case of corruption but some great freedom fighters who have hit the road”, he said. The optics of mother and son, the most politically privileged “two-some” in the country, walking into court, submitting themselves to the court of law, was intended at sending a message of their “modesty” and “respect for the law”.
BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao, meanwhile, said that initially the Congress party’s attempt was to build pressure and give an opinion to the people that this was some kind of administrative action or political vendetta by rivals.
Sources said the Congress believes there is no wrongdoing as alleged by BJP member Subramanian Swamy and the HC’s “criminal intent” remark, which has been used by the BJP against Gandhis, needs to be questioned legally to wipe off the stain. The case is based on a complaint by Swamy.
He alleged that the Gandhis aimed to grab property worth $332 million owned by the publishing firm, Associated Journals, using fraudulent papers. He accused the Gandhis and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by first loaning the money to AJL and then assigning the debt to YIL for Rs 50 lakh.
The National Herald was founded by Jawaharlal Nehru who went on to become India s first prime minister.
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But dogged by bad management, poor circulation and falling revenue, she finally made a decision to close the publication in 2008. A smiling Sonia followed closely by Rahul emerged out of the court after 15 minutes of proceedings.
