Businessman Robert Vadra, husband of Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, was questioned for over six hours on Tuesday by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case related to a 2008 land deal in Haryana.
The questioning took place at the agency’s Delhi office, with Vadra arriving around 11 am and leaving after 6 pm. He has been asked to appear again on Wednesday.
The case, nearly two decades old, involves a 3.5-acre land transaction in Gurugram. In 2007, Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd, a company in which Vadra was a director, purchased the land for ₹7.5 crore from Onkareshwar Properties.
In 2011, after receiving official permissions to develop an apartment complex, the land was sold to real estate major DLF for ₹58 crore.
The transaction was flagged by IAS officer Ashok Khemka, prompting the BJP to accuse Vadra of corruption, claiming the land was unfairly taken from farmers and handed over to him during the tenure of then-Congress Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
Vadra has consistently denied the allegations, and Hooda has also maintained his innocence.
On Tuesday morning, Vadra chose to walk approximately two kilometres from his residence in Sujan Singh Park to the ED office located on APJ Abdul Kalam Road.
Speaking to the media during his walk, he labelled the entire investigation a case of "political vendetta", claiming that the BJP was targeting him because he often speaks out against the government.
“Every time I raise my voice about the government’s failures or express interest in entering politics, they begin misusing the central investigative agencies,” Vadra stated. “This case is nearly 20 years old. If there was anything to find, it would’ve been found by now. I have already submitted 23,000 documents and attended questioning sessions more than 15 times.”
He expressed frustration at being asked to resubmit thousands of documents within a short time frame, calling the process unreasonable and politically motivated. “There is nothing new in this case. I am being harassed unnecessarily,” he added.
When he stepped out briefly for lunch, Vadra reiterated his readiness to cooperate fully with the authorities. However, he stressed the need for the investigation to reach a conclusion, questioning the rationale behind reopening such an old matter. “How long can one keep revisiting the same thing over and over again?” he asked.
The fresh round of questioning comes on the same day a chargesheet in another high-profile case was made public. In the National Herald money laundering case, the ED named Vadra’s in-laws, senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, as part of the ongoing investigation.
This development has further fuelled allegations by the Congress party that the government is weaponising investigative agencies against political opponents ahead of the general elections.
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