New Delhi: Buoyed by the bail to its leaders including president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi in the alleged National Herald corruption case, the Congress challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government to not use "false cases" to target the opposition.
A few minutes after the Patiala House Court of Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen granted bail to Sonia, Rahul, Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes and Suman Dubey, the Congress leadership addressed the media and launched a direct attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Declaring that Modi's "Congress mukt Bharat" slogan would never become a reality, an aggressive Rahul Gandhi claimed that his party would continue to "fight for the poor and for justice".
His mother Sonia, too, took on the Centre. "Today in court, we followed the law just like any citizen should have. I am confident that truth will come out. The present BJP government is targeting the opposition. It is using government agency for this. We are not going to be afraid of them. Our fight against them and for the values of Congress party will continue," she said.
Calling the National Herald case "vendetta politics", Congress leaders vowed to carry on the legal fight.
Earlier, after several hours of high voltage political drama, the hearing in the National Herald case took less than five minutes with both Sonia and Rahul getting bail from the court. The court also granted bail to all the other accused except Sam Pitroda who was not present due to ill health. The others who have been granted bail by Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen include senior Congress leaders Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes and Suman Dubey.
The petitioner and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had asked for travel restrictions to be placed on the accused but the judge declined to do say observing that Sonia and Rahul were unlikely to flee. "Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are reputed person having deep political grass roots. There is no apprehension that they will flee," the court remarked.
Sonia and Rahul were granted bail without any riders and both were asked to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000. Senior Congress leader AK Antony signed the surety for Sonia while Priyanka Gandhi Vadra did the same for Rahul. The court fixed the next date of hearing on February 20, 2016 at 2 PM and also asked Pitroda to be present for the same.
A large number of senior leaders, too, reached the court which was turned into a heavily guarded fortress with almost 5,000 security personnel being deployed. The galaxy of Congress leaders at the court included former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Ghulam Nabu Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Shiela Dikshit, Kumari Selja, Ashwini Kumar, AK Antony, Meira Kumar and Ambika Soni.
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