Congress leaders to march in solidarity as Rahul Gandhi to appear before ED today

The plan is to take out a solidarity march to the ED headquarters, while there will be sit-ins outside the ED offices in the state capitals.

Rahul Gandhi was summoned by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case related to the National Herald newspaper.

In the party’s words, Rahul has “agreed” to appear before the ED. The letter sent by AICC general secretary in-charge of Organisation K C Venugopal to all the CWC members say Rahul Gandhi has “agreed” to appear before the ED and asked them to be present at the AICC headquarters on Monday morning in solidarity with him in his fight for justice in the “fabricated” case.

The party had organised a similar show of strength in 2015 when the Gandhis appeared before the Patiala House court in the National Herald case.

On Sunday, the party held press conferences in several cities, slamming the BJP government for the “vendetta politics”. Sachin Pilot was in Lucknow, Vivek Tankha in Raipur, Sanjay Nirupam in Shimla, Ranjeet Ranjan in Chandigarh, Syed Nasseer Hussain in Patna, Pawan Khera in Ahmedabad and Alka Lamba in Dehradun.

Party leaders said the plan to take out a march to the ED will go ahead as scheduled although party chief Sonia Gandhi has been hospitalised due to complications arising out of Covid infection. “The protest will go ahead as planned,” a senior leader said.

“There is not an iota of illegal activity. Despite this, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi were served notices by the ED out of political vendetta, with the aim to gain some headlines for a week,” party’s national spokesperson Pawan Khera told reporters in Ahmedabad.

Senior leader P Chidambaram said, “I speak as a Congress member and an advocate. The ED’s summons to Rahul Gandhi under PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) is baseless.”