ED ACTION HIT CONG AHEAD OF RAJASTHAN VOTING

ED action may have raised suspicion about alleged role of the Congress in wrongdoings.

- RAHUL CHHABRA

Just days before voting in Rajasthan, the Congress and the BJP were engaged in a war of words over what the Grand Old Party called "misuse of the enforcement agency" for settling political scores even as ED seized properties worth Rs 751.9 crore in a moneylaundering case linked to the National Herald case.

In another controversy, the Election Commission of India issued a show cause notice to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his jaibkatra' (pickpocket) and 'pannauti' (unlucky person) remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an election rally. The BJP had written a complaint to ECI on 22 November about Gandhi using derogatory remarks about PM Modi in his rallies for Rajasthan election.

Gandhi while addressing a rally in Barmer claimed that the PM's presence in the Narendra Modi stadium was the reason behind India's cricket World Cup final loss on 19 November. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, while slamming the ED action in the National Herald newspaper case, said, "Political parties and ruling powers will come and go, but the institutions are the enduring pillars of any democracy, whose independence, integrity and professionalism are meant to inure them from political pressures of the day."