'ED's actions against Rahul to distract from Agnipath stir'

New Delhi: As former Congress president Rahul Gandhi was summoned by Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the fifth day on Tuesday, party's spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the ED probe of Rahul Gandhi is being stretched to distract attention from the "spontaneous protests" against the Centre's Agnipath scheme among other issues.

While addressing a press conference, Singhvi, who is also a senior advocate, said that the party is not against the financial probe agency discharging its duty in National Herald case, but the questioning of over "40 hours" of the former Congress president "beats logic."

"It has become clear that the Modi government, which has failed at every single aspect of governance, is now desperate to divert attention from its latest half-baked attempt at policy making. The Agnipath scheme, launched without consultation or application of mind, is the latest in a series of poorly thought-out announcements to cause widespread protests across the nation," he said.

"Rahul Gandhi is being summoned to distract the nation's attention, to keep all cameras focused on this charade of a process, to make sure that the protesting voices against Agnipath do not get the platforms they deserve," he said. "And how does the Modi government address these protests? The only way it knows how. Through distraction and deceit", "or their best excuse to put every blame on the opposition", he said, adding that Gandhi is not being questioned because the ED has made some "remarkable discovery" after seven years, but to camouflage those issues that deserve attention such as Agnipath, price-rise and unemployment.

Singhvi further said, "The ED summons to Rahul Gandhi reveal its desperation to manifest a case that does not exist. It also reveals the absence of substance, the absence of rudimentary evidence that it would need to make this case."

The Congress leader pointed out that even after seven years, the ED, somehow, is still unable to produce an FIR outlining the offences alleged to have been committed by Rahul Gandhi and other members who served on the board of Young Indian.