National Herald case: Congress leaders to hold pressers in 57 cities this week to 'expose BJP's lies'

Pawan Khera described the National Herald publication as a 'living monument of the freedom struggle'.

New Delhi: Top Congress leaders will fan out across the country to hold press conferences between April 21 and 24 to "expose the BJP's lies" in the National Herald case, its media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said on Sunday.

He described the National Herald publication as a "living monument of the freedom struggle".

The opposition party has been ramping up efforts to blunt the BJP's mounting attack against it in the wake of the Enforcement Directorate naming former Congress chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in its chargesheet in the National Herald case of alleged money laundering.

Congress workers across the country held protests over the issue in the past week. Its general secretaries and in-charges in various states met in Delhi on Saturday to chalk out strategy to counter the "politically motivated" charges.

Asserting that no crime has been committed by the Congress leadership in the case, the party said on Saturday that it would hold press conferences across the country from Monday to Thursday to counter the BJP's "misinformation" tactic.

While P Chidambaram will hold a press conference in Delhi, Shashi Tharoor address reporters in Lakshadweep.

Former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot will hold a press conference in Shimla, Gaurav Gogoi in Jorhat, Syed Naseer Hussain in Goa, Prithviraj Chavan in Belgaum, Manish Tiwari in Chandigarh and Pranav Jha in Dharamshala.

Bhupesh Baghel, the former chief minister of Chhattisgarh, will address reporters in Bhubaneswar, Kumari Selja in Bhopal, Deependra Hooda in Kochi, Kanhaiya Kumar in Jaipur, Amitabh Dubey in Coimbatore, Tariq Anwar in Lucknow, Rajeev Shukla in Saharanpur and Alka Lamba in Varanasi.

"From Vijayawada to Varanasi and from Kashmir to Thiruvananthapuram, Congress leaders are fanning out across India to expose the BJP's lies and anti-national efforts to kill the living monument of the freedom struggle -- The National Herald," Khera said in a post on X.

He shared the list of 57 leaders who will hold press conferences in as many cities.

The Congress on Saturday denounced the Enforcement Directorate's chargesheet against its leaders in the case as a "lie-sheet" and asserted that it was not a legal rather a political battle.

It also expressed confidence that it would win the battle against the Union government on the Waqf (Amendment) Act and alleged that the BJP was deliberately targeting the Supreme Court "which was only telling the ruling party not to frame laws that went against the basic structure of the Constitution".

The Congress has also announced its plan to hold 'Samvidhan Bachao rallies' at the state level from April 25 to 30 and then at the district level from May 3 to 10 and finally launching a door-to-door campaign to take the party's message to every household in the country from May 20 to 30.

The ED has filed a chargesheet naming Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others before a special court here in the National Herald case, accusing them of laundering Rs 988 crore.

It is alleged that a "criminal conspiracy" was carried out by the Congress leaders to "usurp" properties worth Rs 2,000 crore of its public company Associated Journals Limited by transferring 99 per cent shares to a company named Young Indian for just Rs 50 lakh, where Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are the majority shareholders.