Congress says probe electoral gimmick

New Delhi: Days after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was inducted as the general secretary of the Congress, her husband, Robert Vadra, was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case for almost six hours.

The ED had carried out raids in this case in December last year and grilled his aide Manoj Arora, an employee of a firm linked to Mr Vadra, Skylight Hospitality LLP.

Mr Vadra has also been directed by the Rajasthan high court to appear before the ED on February 12 in connection with another money laundering case being probed by the agency.

Earlier in the day a Delhi court extended till February 16 the interim protection from being arrested to Mr Arora.

The ED requested Special Judge Arvind Kumar that as the next date of hearing in Mr Vadra’s case was fixed for February 16, this case too be posted for the same date. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the charges against Mr Vadra are “fickle, superficial, non-existent, non-substantive”. The BJP had full four and a half years to investigate but could not find anything, he claimed at a news conference.

The attempt is to mislead, confuse and to create and ambience before election, but people see through this, he said.

“The ED, income-tax department, the CBI, and 10 other agencies could not do a thing against him for so many years. It shows that this is nothing but an ‘electoral jumla’”.

The ED had told the court that it filed the money laundering case against Mr Arora after his role cropped up during the probe of another case by the income tax department under the 2015 anti-blackmoney legislation against absconding arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari.