National Herald case: Police foil Congress protest march in Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu: Police on Wednesday scuttled a protest march here by the Congress over the Enforcement Directorate's chargesheet against party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in connection with the 2014 National Herald case.

Hundreds of Congress activists and leaders led by party's J&K unit president Tariq Hameed Karra assembled at the party headquarters at Shaheedi Chowk her and started marching on the main road but were not allowed to move forward by a strong contingent of police.

The slogan-shouting protesters, including former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) presidents Ghulam Ahmad Mir and Vikar Rasool Wani, and former ministers Raman Bhalla and Yogesh Sawhney, tried to jump over the barricades but were pushed back by the policemen, officials said.

The ED on Tuesday said it filed a chargesheet on April 9 in a money laundering case linked to the National Herald newspaper. Besides Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, the chargesheet names Congress leaders Sam Pitroda and Suman Dubey as co-accused.

The case, based on a 2014 complaint by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, relates to the alleged acquisition of properties worth over Rs 2,000 crore by Associated Journals Limited (AJL), the publisher of National Herald, and their subsequent transfer to Young Indian – a company in which Sonia and Rahul Gandhi hold a 38 per cent stake each.

“We had planned this march up to the ED office to register our protest against the BJP-led Centre which is misusing central agencies like ED and Income Tax Department to browbeat the opposition parties,” Karra told reporters.

Criticizing the police action, the Congress leader said democracy allows the citizens of the country a right to lodge protest but “this government once again showed that they do not believe in democracy by stopping our march”.

He dismissed the ED chargesheet as a "conspiracy" against the Congress and said the party will not be cowed down by such actions and will emerge stronger with each passing day as “the BJP stands exposed before the people of the country”.

Karra accused the BJP of keeping the central agencies hostage and destroying “Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb”, a reference to the composite culture.

He alleged that the BJP has legalized the corruption and has squeezed the poor to benefit selective “corporate friends”.

Bhalla said the ED chargesheet against the party leadership demonstrates the “frustration” of the BJP after the recent successful meeting of All India Congress Committee in Gujarat.

“The ED chargesheet reflects the political vendetta against the grand old party ahead of Bihar Assembly elections,” he said.