New Delhi, (Samajweekly) Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Monday reacted sharply to the questioning of his son Vaibhav Gehlot by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a FEMA case, saying that it has no substance and the agency is busy in taking mileage for the BJP’s political game.
The Chief Minister made the remarks after coming out of the Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting, chaired by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge to finalise the rest of the candidates for the crucial Assembly polls, at the party headquarters here.
Addressing the media, he said: “He (Vaibhave Gehlot) must have answered all the questions. I don’t know. He was asked to appear before the ED and he appeared.”
He further said that his son had requested to call him after the elections but they must have denied it and “I cannot do anything in that”.
“Let law and order take its own course. There is no substance in the notice, it is a simple notice. The searches took place to give a political message that searches have taken place and the Chief Minister’s son has been asked for questioning.”
He said that now a message has gone in the public that he has been called in a 12-year-old case.
“In fact there was no case… they even went to our state president (Govind Singh Dotasra) house for searches but didn’t question him for the whole day in the paper leak case.
“ED is busy taking political mileage. It will backfire for the BJP in Rajasthan. Whether it is Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh or any other state where the ED searches rake place on the instructions of the centeal ministers. Even in Karnataka, they raided the premises of state unit chief D.K. Shivakumar for over 22 times but Congress won in the elections. Same thing will happen in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.”
Gehlot also said that there is now no credibility of such searches and raids. “Now people have realised that these searches are only meant to take political mileage… why such raids and actions take place against the opposition leaders? Now more they target the Opposition leaders, more we will be benefitted,” he said.
“It is the BJP’s political game…There have been so many raids that now there is no impact of those raids,” he added.
His remarks came after his son was questioned by the ED in a FEMA case for over eight hours. Vaibhav Gehlot was summoned by the ED in connection with a Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) case and was asked to appear before it on Friday. However, he skipped the ED summons asking for more time and also informed that he would be appearing before it on Monday. The summons were issued in connection with the agency’s action in August this year in connection with a FEMA case involving Triton Hotels and Resorts Pvt. Ltd., Vardha Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. and its Directors, p;romoters Shiv Shankar Sharma, Rattan Kant Sharma and others.
The ED had, in a statement in September, said that it had carried out searches on August 29 to 31 at various locations in Jaipur, Udaipur, Mumbai, and Delhi in connection with the case. It had also said that during the search operations, unaccounted cash of Rs 1.27 crore, various incriminating documents including digital evidences, hard disks, mobiles etc. were seized which reveal large scale transactions done by the group out of books of account.
