Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi has rejected allegations of financial impropriety in the National Herald case, asserting that neither she nor Rahul Gandhi received any monetary benefit from the newspaper's revival, while accusing the BJP and RSS of targeting opposition leaders through politically motivated cases.
In her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, published by HarperCollins India on Tuesday, Sonia Gandhi said the National Herald was revived in 2010 through a new not-for-profit entity after the newspaper, founded by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1938, had suffered a decline in readership and quality.
"We thought its revival was imperative: the mainstream press and TV channels were now mostly controlled by corporate interests hostile to the Congress," she wrote.
Sonia Gandhi said the decision was taken after consulting accounting and legal experts and that the not-for-profit structure prohibited shareholders and directors from receiving any monetary benefit.
"None of the directors on its board, neither Rahul nor I, nor any of the others associated with this revival process, have ever received a penny from the enterprise," she said.
Despite this, a criminal conspiracy case was registered against them, forcing the two Congress leaders to appear in court and seek bail in December 2015.
Four years later, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) initiated a parallel prosecution at the government's direction, she said.
Recalling the prolonged investigation, Sonia Gandhi said she and Rahul were summoned to the ED office and questioned for days. The matter, she added, continues to be adjudicated in court after more than 12 years.
Accusing the BJP and RSS of using legal proceedings to keep opposition leaders under pressure, she alleged that they routinely played the role of both accuser and judge, creating an assumption of guilt without bringing cases to a legal conclusion.
She said Rahul had faced at least 30 cases across eight states, which she described as politically motivated attempts to keep him occupied with court proceedings and lawyers.
The Congress leader also recalled the criminal defamation case against Rahul over his remarks at a political rally in 2019 about people with the surname Modi. She said his conviction and subsequent disqualification from Parliament, along with the order to vacate his official residence, came at a time when the general election was approaching.
Sonia Gandhi said she was deeply hurt by the sustained campaign against her son, describing it as a "fully-funded and well-organised campaign" aimed at portraying him as entitled and politically inexperienced.
She recalled how social media trolls mocked Rahul and distorted his statements, while she tried to support him through small gestures, including visiting his home, sending him food and spending time with his pet dogs.
She also highlighted his personal discipline, saying he continued reading extensively, practising Vipassana meditation and working on his fitness. Rahul also earned a black belt in Aikido and undertook the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage in 2018, she wrote.
The memoir also refers to allegations against Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's husband, businessman Robert Vadra. Sonia Gandhi said he faced years of investigations, repeated summons, threats of arrest and inflated tax penalties before agencies filed charges in one of the cases against him.
Despite the challenges, she said Priyanka's family remained close-knit and had grown stronger through the difficulties.
(With inputs from PTI)