New Delhi, Apr 17 (PTI) The BJP on Thursday said the National Herald matter is an “open and shut case of fraud, corruption and money laundering” and slammed the Congress over its allegation of political vendetta.

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said Congress workers should rather hold protests outside the residences of their leaders for using the properties that were given to the National Herald for charitable use by the government for personal gains.

Dismissing the Congress allegation that the Narendra Modi government was using probe agencies to target its leaders, Puri told reporters that the opposition party should introspect.

“The leaders are misleading their own cadres. If they have to protest, they should protest against their own leadership,” he said.

Noting that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi together hold 76 per cent share in the Young Indian, he said the company transferred 99 per cent share of the Associated Journals, which owns the National Herald, for a nominal amount of Rs 50 lakh.

The Associated Journals, he said, owned properties worth over Rs 2,000 crore. He alleged, “It is an open and shut case of fraud, corruption and money laundering.” Puri said the case dates back to a time when the Congress-led UPA government was in power and added that the then metropolitan magistrate had asserted that the Young Indian appeared to be created as a cloak to use public money for personal use.

Citing an example, the BJP leader said the Congress-affiliated newspaper was allotted 0.3365 acres of land at Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg for a subsidised rate of Rs 1.25 lakh per acre in 1963 to run its press and office.

However, he added that the press was closed down long back and its four floors were rented out to the passport office and a corporate group for a huge amount of money. PTI KR RHL