Herald case: ED names Cong leaders who ‘sought donations’ for AJL, YI

Some Congress leaders were among individuals who donated funds to the Young Indian and AJL on instructions from senior party functionaries as not doing so would have been “damaging” for their political careers and businesses, the ED is learnt to have said in its chargesheet filed in the National Herald case.

The chargesheet was filed on April 9 before a local court which is yet to take its cognisance.

The ED has named 78-year-old former Congress president and Rajya Sabha MP Sonia Gandhi as accused No. 1 and her son Rahul Gandhi (54) as accused No. 2, apart from five others in the prosecution complaint filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The National Herald-AJL-YI case pertains to an alleged conspiracy orchestrated to illegally obtain assets worth Rs 2,000 crore of the Associated Journals Limited (AJL) by the “beneficial owners” and majority shareholders of YI (Sonia and Rahul). The AJL is the publisher of the National Herald news platform (newspaper and web portal) and is owned by Young Indian Private Limited.

The federal probe agency, according to sources, found in its investigation that some entities made payment to the company “under the influence” of senior Congress leaders who promised them “certain favours” in party politics. The Congress has described the ED’s chargesheet as “vendetta politics”.

Those named in the chargesheet for seeking donations for YI include Telangana CM and former PCC president Revanth Reddy, late Ahmed Patel and Pawan Bansal. However, none of these leaders have been named as accused in the chargesheet. There was no immediate reactions from Reddy and Bansal.

The ED has recorded the statement of Congress leader Arvind Vishwanath Singh Chauhan, who said he “arranged” Rs 30 lakh donation from his bank account and Rs 20 lakh “in cash” for YI as he “could not refuse” the “request” of Patel as he had contested the MLA election on the party ticket.

Another person, Rajeev Gambhir, is understood to have told the ED that he made donations to the YI “on instructions of” Patel and for securing some post for himself in the AICC office apart from a ticket for his son-in-law for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the Mandi seat of Himachal Pradesh.

The ED said Gambhir later wrote to Sonia to get his money back as the promises made to him were “not fulfilled” and a 80G certificate to claim I-T benefits on this donation was not provided to him.

The ED is understood to have named Telangana CM Reddy (who was Telangana PCC president then), Patel and Bansal as the Congress leaders on whose instructions a number of people made donations to YI between 2019 and 2022.

The ED is understood to have stated that payments made to YI cannot be held as donations as they were not made “voluntarily” but in expectation of some betterment for the donors' political career.

The agency has also named former Congress MP from Punjab Ravneet Bittu (now with the BJP and a Union minister) and former MLA Bharat Bhushan Ashu (arrested by the ED some years back), Bharat Inder Singh Chahal, a close associate of former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh who is with the BJP now, and late Congress leader Oscar Fernandes as people who approached individuals to fund advertisements in the National Herald through AJL.

The ED said funds in the AJL were received by way of “quid pro quo” where people were initially “obliged” by the Congress leaders and subsequently asked to make payments for advertisements.