NEW DELHI: Even the government’s own Income Tax Department has valued all assets of the Associated Journals Limited (AJL) owning the National Herald and sister publications at around Rs 350 crore, but the Modi government and its Godi media are fuelling their propaganda with a lie of Rs 2,000 crore, the Congress said on Friday.
The lie of Rs 2,000 crore came from Union Minister Smriti Irani in a press conference she addressed on June 13, the first day of interrogations of Rahul Gandhi by the Enforcement Directorate in the alleged money laundering in the National Herald case.
She claimed that the Congress protests and “satygrah” that sprang up on that day is not to save democracy but to protect Gandhis’ seizing Rs 2,000 crore assets of the AJL. She did not reveal her source of information and yet her lie is being spread by a section of the media since then.
The Congress response: “The BJP must note that no powewr of propaganda is bigger than the power of Truth. Satyameva Jayate.”
In a tweet, the Congres asked if the ED call “someone who didn’t even spare a pandemic to make blood money” and the government didn’t take action against him. It is now questioning the loans given to a national legacy, National Herald launched during the freedom struggle.
The Congress asked: “When will ED summon Himanta Biswa Sarma, accused of PPE kit scam in Assam?” It said it has become a BJP habit to protect the corrupt and asked when will ED summon former Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa? When will ED summon Karnataka’s former minister (KS Eshwarappa) demanding commission, due to which a contractor committed suicide? When will it summon the Reddy brothers of Bellary in embezzlement of thousands of crores, the Congress asked.
“When will ED start focusing on the real criminals? What about the Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh in which the deaths are not hidden from anybody? Are they safe because they enjoy the patronage of BJP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan?”
