The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a chargesheet against Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in what is known as the National Herald money-laundering case. A special MP/MLA court fixed April 25 as the date for a hearing to decide on taking cognisance of it. While the court fixed the date on April 15, the ED moved on April 12 to take possession of property worth Rs 750 crore owned by Associated Journals Limited (AJL), which runs the National Herald.
Several other people and entities, including Sam Pitroda, the head of the Congress’s overseas branch, Suman Dubey, a former journalist, and Young India, a firm in which the Gandhis have a controlling share and which is at the centre of the storm, have also been named in the chargesheet. The case is complicated.
The essence of the allegations is that while AJL had taken a loan from the Congress, which it had failed to return, it was Young India that acquired all the assets of the company for a paltry sum of Rs 50 lakh. The AJL had borrowed Rs 90 crore from the Congress, which was converted to equity amounting to Rs 9.02 crore by the party and then transferred to Young India, in which the Gandhis hold a 76 per cent stake, for Rs 50 lakh. The case was initiated in 2014 on the basis of a complaint by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy.
Whatever be the merits of the case, it appears that this probe, pursued with the zeal of a witch-hunt, is another instance of the BJP establishment trying to hobble the opposition in a long series of pre-emptive actions against adversarial parties.
The mode of operation that the current regime has chosen is the weaponisation of the law-enforcement agencies, especially the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to pursue the unabashed project of setting up an authoritarian state in which the checks and balances, so crucial for the functioning of a constitutional democracy, are ruthlessly suppressed.
An uninhibited campaign to undermine and subvert other crucial institutions, including the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the judiciary, has also been pursued to the point that constitutional democracy is now under serious threat. Little wonder that India is now counted as among the worst of ‘elected autocracies’ by commentators and agencies in the free world.
As the current regime pursues corruption cases against the opposition, it also insulates itself with the cloak of power to pursue its own monumental corruption and cronyism. This is not an argument for giving anyone a free pass, it is merely to point to the absence of a level playing field, which helps the regime to pursue its dystopian plans for India.
