As Rahul Gandhi was being grilled by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the third consecutive day Wednesday, the Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) Wednesday accused the ED of being a political tool of the Modi government. ED has asked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to appear for the fourth time on Friday.
Addressing a press conference Wednesday, NPCC president K Therie expressed anguish at the “continued harassment” of Rahul Gandhi by ED and also condemned the attitude and actions of the agency. He said ED was only trying to find faults with Rahul but despite over 25 hours, the agency has not been able to do so.
Therie claimed that even ECI had previously maintained that the allegations against the Gandhis were false and left the matter there.
However, Therie said the ED, at the instance of the BJP government, was questioning Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, who fell under the ambit of Sec-25 ‘Not for Profit’ company. He said the Gandhis were targeted “because they are spirited democratic leaders questioning the wrongs of Prime Minister Modi and his Government.”
Therie expressed strong condemnation of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre for the continued attacks on opposition leaders by using government agencies.
He asserted that the use of government agencies against any leader questioning the government “amounts to Legal Terror-another face of Fascism.”
Therie said that while ED accused Rahul Gandhi of non-cooperation, the agency would get the same answers since there was no guilt. Therie said ED may even arrest Rahul on one pretext or the other, but he (Rahul) would not be cowed down. “He will continue to stand for the people and the nation as he has no guilty conscience,” Therie said.
He lamented that in Nagaland there was blatant evidence of money laundering, but “they remain senseless to these.” Therie claimed that there were many cases involving BJP leaders but no questioning but the party continued to harass the leaders of the opposition.
Therie alleged that Indian democracy was lost as there was no justice nor equality that citizens expect.
AICC secretary I/C–Nagaland, Ranajit Mukherjee, condemned the Delhi Police’s action of entering and harassing party workers at AICC HQ in New Delhi.
He said every party worker has the right to enter any party across the state and condemned the imposition of Section 144 on Akbar Road to prevent party workers from entering the party HQ.
Mukherjee said that Rahul Gandhi represents the Congress party with over 70 MPs, hundreds of MLAs across the nation and a state unit in every state. He said that the Congress Party across the nation was enraged by the deliberate political vendetta being carried on its leadership. AICC secretary said that the party workers would stand with Rahul Gandhi to the extent of having to be jailed if he is.
NPCC vice president Alemjongshi Longkumer stated that the present situation represented a “Democratic Dictatorship” while citing “examples” of NDA selectively picking on political opponents to harass them.
He described Rahul Gandhi as one of the most vocal political leaders voicing out against the misgovernance of the central government.
He said BJP-led NDA government was politically, socially, economically, environmentally and morally a failure today. He claimed that BJP government was using all the autonomous agencies for their political vendetta and called upon the people to discard the present government in the next elections.
Others who attended the press conference included NPCC working president V Lasuh, NPCC general secretary Shaboh Konyak and NPCC secretary Rajiv Das.
