Congress Trains Guns at Modi Govt over National Herald Case

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Kharge said the National Herald case must serve as a lesson to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister “against misusing the CBI, ED and other investigating agencies.”

By TRH Political Desk

New Delhi, December 17, 2025 — Describing the refusal by the court to take cognisance of the ECIR filed by the Enforcement Directorate in the National Herald case a “slap on the face” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge today demanded their resignation, asking them to step down.

Addressing a press conference along with senior party leaders at his residence here today, Kharge said that justice has prevailed in the matter. He noted that this must serve as a lesson to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister “against misusing the CBI, ED and other investigating agencies against their political opponents.”

He said the case was registered only to defame and malign the Gandhi family and the Congress party. Kharge pointed out how the “BJP government has weaponised the ED and misused the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against its political opponents.”

He said, “so many MPs were made to defect to BJP and many governments across the states were formed using the ED.” Replying to a question on how to fight the battle politically, the Congress president said that the party will use all the fora from the “street to the Parliament” to expose the government and teach it a lesson.

Giving details about the court decision, senior party MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that law had spoken louder than noise. “The case was always long on rhetoric and short on legs,” he remarked, adding, “there was too much sound and fury signifying nothing”.

Singhvi said, “this story is a story of political vendetta and of harassment based on facts, which are remarkable, adding that there was written ‘noting’ on the files by the CBI and the ED between 2014 and 2021 that no predicate offence was made in the complaint filed by a private person, Subramanian Swamy.”

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He said the court refused to take cognisance at the very threshold stage of criminal law, “holding that even the minimum legal requirements for proceeding under the PMLA were not met.”

He pointed out then suddenly in June 2021, despite adverse noting, the ED went ahead to file ECIR on the orders from the top. He said, everybody knows at whose behest the ECIR was filed, of which the court has refused to take cognisance.

Singhvi said that this was a strange and unique case registered by the ED, in which not a penny had been moved and not an inch of an immovable property had been transferred from one person to another.

He said, this was a simple case of conversion of debt into equity, which every company does. He said the Associated Journals Limited (AJL), which owned the National Herald and continues to own it, ran into losses and debts. Like every company, the AJL also decided to convert the debt into equity and the Young Indian purchased the shares.