Day after raids at Herald House, Young Indian office sealed by ED

The Delhi Police also beefed up security outside Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi’s house in Janpath. While senior police officers refused to comment on the matter, police personnel were deployed outside Congress headquarters at Akbar Road and streets were barricaded.

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“We have received information from Special Branch that AICC workers and public persons might stage protest outside the AICC HQ and other areas. Since section 144 is imposed in the area, we have put barricades to avoid any untoward situation,” a source told The Indian Express.

The ED had on Tuesday conducted search operations at Herald House in Delhi in connection with its money laundering probe in the National Herald case. Herald House is the registered office address of Associate Journals Limited (AJL), the National Herald newspaper’s publisher, which is under probe over its acquisition by Young Indian, a firm linked to the Gandhi family.

After the ED’s latest move on Wednesday, senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge termed it a “tactic to scare people.” “This is just a tactic to scare people. But people will not be scared. They will rise up in revolt,” Kharge said.

In a press conference, Congress leader Ajay Maken said the “abrupt action” was a “distraction ploy from the Congress’s planned protest on unemployment and inflation”.

Speaking at the same presser, Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the government, through the “police gherabandi”, wants to “ensure that issues like job crisis fall out of headlines”.

Senior leader Jairam Ramesh said, “Those who threaten are the ones who are scared. Those who indulge in the politics of vengeance are the ones who are scared.”

Earlier the same day, Congress had alleged that the ED had become a “tool” in the hands of the Centre to “destroy” Opposition parties. Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also said that the party was not being allowed to raise the issue of alleged “misuse” of the ED in Parliament.