Amid the raging row over the National Herald case, the Congress on Sunday asserted that the allegations and “insinuations” against party leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are “deliberately orchestrated”, “patently false” and “defamatory” as they have “not received a rupee”.
Senior party leaders and legal luminaries P Chidambaram and Ashwani Kumar insisted that all transactions in question are legal and expressed confidence that both Sonia and Rahul Gandhi will be “fully vindicated” through the judicial process.
“(There is) nothing wrong in this transaction. In fact, by putting a non-profit company as the dominant shareholder, we have ensured that not one rupee from the assets can go to any private beneficiary,” said Chidambaram, defending the move to transfer the shares of Associate Journalist Limited (AJL) to Young India, a company of which Sonia and Rahul are major shareholders.
Sonia and Rahul have nothing to worry because “they have not received a rupee benefit”, the former Finance Minister said, while raising questions on the Narendra Modi government’s role, saying it had acted hastily on a “private complaint” to reopen a shut case. He said the assets of AJL are now “doubly secure” as a non-profit company is the dominant shareholder.
Kumar, in a statement here, said there are “incontrovertible facts” which make it obvious that “allegations and insinuations against the Congress leadership and others are deliberately orchestrated, are patently false and defamatory. All transactions in question are entirely legal.”