Protesting against the Enforcement Directorate’s questioning of the party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi in the National Herald money laundering case, the Punjab and Haryana units of Congress on Tuesday held a ‘satyagraha’ here.

Notably, the ED sleuths recorded Sonia Gandhi’s statement for about 2.5 hours on Tuesday— the second day of her questioning — in the case related to the alleged financial irregularities in the Congress-promoted Young Indian Private Limited, which owns the newspaper.  

Calling it an unprecedented move in the history of democratic India, Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said that the ruling party is not only trying to “stifle” the voice of opposition but wants to completely “finish it off”.  

“BJP leaders have been saying quite often that they want ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’, which is an authoritarian thinking,” he said, adding that no matter how much they try, Congress will emerge stronger. He said that the Congress party has strong ideological fundamentals and it has made immense contributions and sacrifices, first during the independence struggle and then in post-independent India. 

Warring pointed out that earlier, party leader Rahul Gandhi was questioned for five days, for as long as 12 to 15 hours every day, and now the ED was repeatedly summoning Sonia Gandhi with the clear aim of ‘harassment’ as they know that nothing is going to come out of it as nothing has happened.

The state Congress chief also lashed out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government in Punjab which, he said, was following the same script as that of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre. He pointed out how the AAP government in Punjab has started targeting its political opponents on the pretext of acting against “fake and bogus” complaints.

Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in Punjab Vidhan Sabha Partap Singh Bajwa said that it is unfortunate that the BJP Government was “misusing” various agencies to settle scores with its political opponents. Political battles should be fought politically, he added. Congratulating the party leaders and workers for the show of strength with unity and discipline, Bajwa said that no force can browbeat the Congress party or its workers as long as they remain united. He assured the party workers that the party will always stand by them, come what may.

HARYANA CONG PROTEST 

Led by Haryana Congress president Udai Bhan, several party MLAs, senior leaders, office-bearers and workers took part in the 'satyagraha' held at the party office here. Later, they also burnt an effigy of the central government over the detention of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and several other party MPs by the Delhi Police after they staged a protest against the party president's questioning by the ED.

Bhan said Rahul Gandhi and the other MPs had assembled in Parliament and were marching towards the Rashtrapati Bhavan to draw the President's attention to the alleged misuse of central agencies by the government. ''But the manner in which the police misbehaved with them and arrested them on the orders of the government is highly condemnable,'' he said.

Accusing the Modi government of ''murdering democracy'', Bhan claimed the central probe agencies are being used to target opposition leaders. It is the responsibility of the Opposition to raise issues of public interest. ''But the Modi government at the Centre wants to crush the voice of the Opposition completely. That is why the ED, the CBI and other central agencies are being misused against Congress leaders,'' he added.