Probe agencies working like BJP extensions: Pramod Tiwari

Senior Congress leader and MP Pramod Tiwari on Wednesday said that investigating agencies in the country were functioning as extensions of the BJP and the charge-sheet against senior Congress leaders in the National Herald case was the outcome of the Modi government’s mental and moral bankruptcy.

Tiwari, who is the deputy leader of Congress in the Rajya Sabha, alleged that the ED has filed the charge-sheet on flimsy grounds in the case.

He said leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru were founders of the National Herald that was being published by Associated Journals Limited (AJL).

He said the Congress gave a loan of ₹90 crore to the AJL in 2002-2011 through 100 bank transactions to pay for gratuity, PF and VRS to employees and payment of taxes and power bills.

He said Young Indian was a not-for-profit company and no one could earn profit or draw a salary from the organisation.

Meanwhile, the Congress held statewide demonstrations on Wednesday to protest the ED charge-sheet against the party’s senior leaders.

In Lucknow, the party had proposed to hold the demonstration in front of the ED office on Ashok Marg. The police stopped them a few meters from the UPCC headquarters as they proceeded towards the ED office.

According to a press release, City Congress president Amit Srivastava ‘Tyagi’ said, “Yes, the police had put up barricades near the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board office. We courted arrest there.”