- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Speculation is rife that the opposition INDIA bloc may field the 51-year-old Vadra against prime minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi in next year’s general elections.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S opposition Indian National Congress has received a fresh blow as one of its top leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has been named in a chargesheet by India’s economic crime-fighting agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) over an alleged purchase and sale of five acres of land in the northern state of Haryana.
Both Vadra, 51, and her businessman husband Robert Vadra have been named but neither has been listed as an “accused”, India’s NDTV reported on Thursday (28) citing sources. This is the first time that Gandhi Vadra has been named in a chargesheet. The report is also made the day when the Congress, also known as India’s Grand Old Party, was celebrating its 139th foundation day.
Read: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra dragged on Delhi streets as Congress confronts govt
The chargesheet was filed against CC Thampi, a non-resident Indian businessman, and Sumit Chadha, a British national of Indian origin.
According to the ED, they aided fugitive arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari, accused of violating various laws and hiding proceeds of his crimes.
The agency, which a number of opposition parties have accused of being remote controlled by the Narendra Modi government in New Delhi and acting against them, referred to Gandhi Vadra’s transactions with HL Pahwa, a real-estate agent from Delhi who sold her an agricultural land in Faridabad in Haryana in 2006 and repurchasing the same land four years later, the report added.
Besides, a house was also allegedly bought in Gandhi Vadra’s name in Faridabad’s Amipur village in 2006 and sold back to Pahwa at the same time as the land, the sources told NDTV.
While Gandhi Vadra was yet to make a reaction, senior leaders from her party targeted Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, saying it was targeting the opposition leaders through central agencies, months before India went to the general elections.
Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, chief minister of the northern state of Himachal Pradesh said “names of several leaders are attached with ED right before Lok Sabha elections”.
Nana Patole, Congress chief in the western state of Maharashtra said the ED’s naming Gandhi Vadra showed “BJP is… scared of Congress”.
“The British were scared of Gandhi then and, even today, the central government is scared of the Gandhi family… BJP is trying to divert people from the real issues,” he told news agency Asian News International.
Another senior Congress leader Pawan Khera accused the BJP of creating “conspiracies when elections approach”.
“Look at what they do ahead of elections.. this is just the beginning. They are not doing it for the first time… they do such conspiracies when elections approach. Let them do conspiracies,” he said.
The Aam Aadmi Party, a member of the Congress-led INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) opposition bloc, hit out at the ED for “continuously taking action against opposition leaders”.
Gandhi Vadra is expected to play a key role in her party’s battle in the next general elections when it will challenge Modi’s BJP. There were also reports that she could be fielded by the INDIA bloc against Modi in his constituency of Varanasi in the eastern part of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, which she looked after in 2019-20.
She is currently the Congress’s general secretary but “without any assigned portfolio”, which also fuels speculation that she will make her electoral debut in 2024.
