In an unprecedented but well thought out move, the Congress party has gone all out to build up public perception across the country that the Enforcement Directorate charge sheet against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case was an act of political vendetta, lacking any merit.
As the Special Trial Court is scheduled to take up the matter on April 25 to decide on taking cognisance of the charge sheet, the Congress has gone all out to defend the two senior most leaders of the first family, who have been named as accused number one and two in the ED charge sheet.
The party has deputed senior most leaders like P Chidambaram, Manish Tewari, Randeep Surjewala and others to different states where they will be explaining the ‘National Herald’ case to the people over three days, to counter any perception that may build up in the event of court taking cognizance of the charge sheet. Normally in such matters political parties even avoid simple comments with a general refrain that the matter is sub judice and they have full faith in the judiciary.
But in this matter, the Congress party has made an exception by trying to pre-empt any possible damage by an adverse development. The party, while keeping aside the legal and judicial aspects of the matter, has been alleging that the case is purely a part of vendetta and witch hunt by the BJP against the Gandhis.
However, the case goes back to November 2012, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government was very much in power. The then BJP MP Subramnaian Swamy, who has now fallen apart from the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, filed a complaint in a Delhi court alleging that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had committed a fraud to grab properties wroth Rs 1600 crore, owned by the Associated Journals of India (AJL). According to the Congress party there is no fraud or crime involved in the matter.
The AJL was founded by prominent Congressmen, including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Kailash Nath Katju, GB Pant, Purshottam Dass Tandon, Acharya Narendra Dev, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai and Krisna Dut Paliwal. They were all signatories to the ‘Memorandum of Association’. The AJL had 1057 shareholders as of September 29, 2010, as per the annual return filed by the company with the Registrar of Companies.
When the AJL transferred its shares to the newly formed Young Indian Limited, a company, some of the shareholders alleged that they were not informed about the meeting that was supposedly held to decide on the transfer of shares to the YIL.
Congress’ allegations of political vendetta and witch hunt apart, the courts have taken due cognizance of the matter and not offered any relief to Gandhis and others so far. When they challenged the complaint and wanted it to be dismissed, the court observed that prima facie evidence against all the accused was found and issued summons to them (the defendants) to appear in the court to defend themselves against all the allegations made by Swamy.
On June 26, 2014, Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha observed that according to the evidence so far, "it appears that YIL (Young Indian Limited) was in fact created as a sham or a cloak to convert public money to personal use" and the accused had allegedly acted "in consortium with each other to achieve the said nefarious purpose/design".
Gandhi and others had challenged the trial court's summons to appear before it in the Delhi High Court. However, on December 7 2015, the Delhi High Court dismissed their appeals and ordered them to appear in person before the trial court on December 9. The Delhi High Court in its December 7, 2015 order also noted "criminal intent." Even the Supreme Court on February 12, 2016 refused to quash the proceedings against them.
As the ED eventually filed a charge sheet in the trial court on April 16, 2025 the Congress opted to use multiple public platforms to counter the perception against the first family. In none of the press conferences, however, did the Congress leaders make any reference to various observations made by the courts from time to time.
The timing of the press conferences, spread across 57 cities across the country in all the states and union territories is significant, as these were planned to be held over a span of three days, just ahead of the next date of hearing when the court has to decide on taking cognizance of the charge sheet.
The party appears to have taken a calculated risk by going public about a matter that, as of now, is completely sub-judice. Such moves at times can even boomerang as these can be perceived as aimed at building “extra-judicial” influence.
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