Gandhi, who was diagnosed with Covid recently, was seen wearing a mask and was accompanied by her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
The Delhi Police deployed a huge force and barricaded the entire over 1 km stretch between Gandhi's residence on Akbar Road-Janpath and the ED office.
Congress Party has slammed the agency's action against its top leadership and called it a "political vendetta". The Congress chief is deposing on the third summons as she sought exemption on earlier dates of June 8 and June 23 due to Covid-19 infection. The probe relates to alleged financial irregularities in the Congress-promoted Young Indian Private Limited, which owns the National Herald newspaper.
Here are top-10 updates of this news:
- Congress party workers have begun protets across the country against ED questioning of party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
- Congress MPs also held protests in Parliament against the Central government over the questioning of party president. The Congress MPs marched from Gate No 2 to Gandhi Statue. The protest was organised soon after the Upper House was adjourned till 12 amid Opposition ruckus.
- Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said, "The Modi Sarkar has unleashed a relentless campaign of vendetta against its political opponents and critics through the mischievous misuse of investigative agencies. Prominent leaders of a number of political parties have been deliberately targeted and subjected to harassment in an unprecedented manner".
- On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised the protest. Union minister Pralhad Joshi on Thursday in Lok Sabha slammed the protesters and said that Congress thinks they are above the law.
- The ED last month questioned Rahul Gandhi on several occasions in the case.
- What is the National Herald case: The case to investigate alleged financial irregularities under the PMLA was registered about nine months ago after a trial court took cognisance of an Income Tax Department probe carried out on the basis of a private criminal complaint filed by former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP in 2013.
- What the petition says: The petitioner had approached the court alleging that the assets of Associated Journals Limited (AJL), which published the National Herald newspaper, were fraudulently acquired and transferred to Young Indian Pvt Limited (YIL), in which Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi owned 38% shares each. The YIL promoters include Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. The petition alleged that the Gandhis cheated and misappropriated funds, with YIL paying only ₹50 lakh to obtain the right to recover ₹90.25 crore that AJL owed to the Congress.
- Congress argued that YIL was a not-for-profit company under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 that can neither accumulate profits nor pay dividends to its shareholders.
- The federal agency's move followed the questioning of senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Congress Treasurer Pawan Bansal in April this year in New Delhi in connection with its money laundering probe into the National Herald case. The agency then recorded the statements of both the Congress leaders then under the PMLA. The National Herald is published by AJL and owned by YIL. Kharge is the CEO of YIL, Bansal is the Managing Director of AJL.
- The ED is currently investigating the shareholding pattern and financial transactions as well as the role of party functionaries in the functioning of AJL and YIL.
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