Do whatever, we aren't scared of Narendra Modi: Rahul on ED action

New Delhi, Aug 04: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over what he claimed was pressure tactics to silence him and other opposition voices using central agencies.

"We will not be intimidated, we are not afraid of Narendra Modi," Rahul Gandhi told reporters on the ED action in the National Herald case.

"Whatever they [BJP] do won't make any difference. I will continue to do the work to protect our country, its democracy and brotherhood," he added.

"They think by putting a little pressure they can silence us. We won't be silent. We will stand against what the BJP is doing. We will not be intimidated," Rahul said.

The ED on Thursday temporarily sealed the office space of Young Indian (YI) company in the premises of Congress-owned newspaper National Herald in Delhi as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation.

The seal was put in order to "preserve the evidence" which could not be collected as authorised representatives of YI were not present during the raids that were launched on Tuesday.

The National Herald newspaper is published by Associated Journals Ltd. (AJL) and its holding company is Young Indian. The newspaper office is registered in the name of AJL.

The agency recently carried out the high-profile questioning of Congress president Sonia Gandhi (in July) and her MP son Rahul Gandhi (in June) in this case at its headquarters in Delhi apart from that of Kharge and Bansal in April.

The Congress has said it gave a Rs 90 crore loan to an ailing AJL between 2001-02 and 2010-11 and later, in 2011, the shares of AJL were allotted to Young Indian and this debt was converted into equity and the loan was extinguished in the books of the AJL.

The ED claims these transactions attract anti-money laundering charges as a complex web of transactions and routing of funds were undertaken by the party and its leaders to acquire AJL's assets worth multiple crores of rupees.

The Gandhis are understood to have told the ED during their separate questioning sessions that no personal assets were made in the Congress-AJL-National Herald deal as Young Indian was a "not-for-profit" company established under section 25 of the Companies Act.