Ajay Chaturvedi 
Amid high drama, Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi was grilled by ED in the National Herald money laundering case. Gandhi arrived at the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office in central Delhi on Sunday around 11am after he started from the Congress office accompanied by a large convoy of party leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel. According to reports, raising slogans in support of Gandhi, Congress workers started a march towards the ED office but were stopped by the police which had put up barricades all around the AICC office. A large number of workers were taken in preventive custody for violating the provisions of Section 144 CrPC banning assembly of more than four persons, which was imposed in central Delhi. This is the first time that Gandhi has appeared before a central probe agency for questioning in a case.
Chaotic scenes were witnessed as Rahul Gandhi, accompanied by sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, headed towards the ED's office it amid party workers' slogans against the central government. Top Congress leaders were detained and put on buses. They were then taken to police stations. Ms Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reached the Tughlaq Road police station to meet party leaders, including Congress general secretary KC Venugopal.
Meanwhile, Union Minister Smriti Irani said that the Congress is not protesting to save democracy, but to save Rahul Gandhi's properties worth Rs 2,000 crore, She said the protests are an attempt to pressurise investigating agencies and that never before has a political family attempted to hold investigative agencies to ransom to protect "ill-gotten wealth". She alleged that the ownership of the AJL company was transferred to one family so that it doesn't publish newspapers but become a real estate business instead. Ms Irani quoted a sentence from a 2019 Delhi High Court judgement that said, "The entire transaction of transferring of shares of AJL to Young India was nothing but a clandestine and surreptitious transfer of the lucrative interest into the premises of Young India".
Opposition party TMC has called Congress’s conduct hypocritical. "TMC is clear in its view; this nationwide protest call by the Congress is an example of politics of opportunism and double standards,” TMC mouthpiece ‘Jago Bangla’ report. "Just when they got a call from agencies, Congress's top leadership started trembling in fear," reads the article.
The Delhi Police had asked Congress leaders to go to Jantar Mantar in central Delhi if they wanted a big gathering. The police have detained several top Congress leaders for violating prohibitory orders. According to Special Commissioner of the Delhi Police (law and order) Sagar Preet Hooda, ee cleared that if they want a big gathering, they can go to Jantar Mantar, "The Section 144 was already imposed. The Supreme Court has some guidelines and as per our own SoP, we could not provide the permission; we permitted 100 people to go to the AICC office and the rest of the demonstration was permitted to be held at Jantar Mantar," Hooda said.
.jpg)
