New Delhi, Apr 16 (PTI) Asserting that no one has a “licence to loot”, the ruling BJP on Wednesday dismissed the Congress’ charge of vendetta after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) chargesheeted Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.

Former law minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said the law will take its own course under the Modi government and that probe agencies will not be fazed by the “threats” of the Congress.

Speaking to reporters, Prasad asked the Congress to reply to the substance of the allegations against the Gandhis instead of merely offering a political reaction, noting that the opposition party found no relief from the judiciary in its pleas against the probe.

He outlined the main charge against the Gandhis that as 76 per cent shareholder of the Young India company, they “misappropriated” thousands of crores of real-estate owned by the Associated Journals Limited (AJL), which owned the National Herald newspaper.

The senior BJP leader said the Congress has the right to hold ‘dharnas’ (to protest the ED chargesheet against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi) but that right does not extend to misappropriating public properties given by the government to the National Herald.

He accused the Congress of issuing threats to the probe agency and asked if the party and Gandhis believe in the due process of law.

“We condemn the threats from the Congress. The Modi government is in place and it will allow the law to take its own course,” Prasad said.

Young India, he said, wrote off a Rs 90 crore loan that the Congress gave to AJL and got the ownership of the company with a paltry investment of Rs 50 lakh.

The land was given to AJL by the government, Prasad said, adding that National Herald was allegedly used by the Congress establishment to collect advertisements and properties.

“A newspaper that was established during the freedom struggle to espouse the voice of those fighting British imperialism degenerated into a money-minting exercise for the Congress establishment,” he alleged.

Taking a swipe, he said this is the “Gandhi model of development”, as he noted the allegation against Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra of pocketing a huge profit in a land deal in Haryana with the collusion of the then Congress government in the state.

National Herald was launched in the 1930s as a voice of the freedom struggle with 5,000 shareholders but was reduced to a fief of the Nehru-Gandhi family, he alleged.

Prasad also claimed that Congress leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel and Chandra Bhanu Gupta voiced concerns over the manner in which the newspaper, which has ceased to publish, was run.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a chargesheet against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and others before a special court here in the National Herald case, accusing them of laundering Rs 988 crore.

The federal probe agency has also named Congress leader Sam Pitroda and Suman Dubey as accused in the case.

The Congress described the ED’s chargesheet as vendetta politics, claiming that seizing of assets in the case was a “state-sponsored crime masquerading as the rule of law”.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi hit back (at the Congress) and said that no question of vendetta politics arises here, as the probe into the case began on the Delhi High Court’s directive in 2013 when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power at the Centre.

“If they are calling it vindictive politics, they are admitting that they took some wrong action against us when they were in power,” Trivedi told reporters at a separate press conference at the BJP headquarters here while replying to media queries.

Reading out some portions from the letters written by Vallabhbhai Patel to then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the memoir of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Chandra Bhanu Gupta, Trivedi alleged that the Congress considered National Herald as “profitable investment, business proposition and a property”.

“Then how can they say it (the National Herald case) doesn’t come under the purview of ED and the agency’s action is motivated by some political malice,” Trivedi asked, adding that the Congress should look at the probe agency’s chargesheet as a judicial and legal process, instead of doing politics on it.

The BJP spokesperson also alleged that the way the Congress leadership has played with the “legacy of freedom fighters” in the National Herald case raises “ethical questions” as well.

“They transferred our freedom fighter’s property (AJL) to their own child,” he charged. PTI KR PK ARI