Swamy accuses Gandhis of fraud

Less than a fortnight after Arvind Kejriwal trained his guns on BJP president Nitin Gadkari charging him of fraudulent deals through the Purti group, Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy on Thursday alleged that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi usurped property in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh by fraudulently taking over a company.

Swamy, who wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in this regard on Tuesday, said, “A fraud has been committed in the sale of The Associated Journals Limited (AJL), to a private limited company called Young Indian. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi floated a company named Young Indian which later acquired AJL. AJL owns National Herald and Quami Awaz newspapers, apart from high-value real estate properties in Delhi and other places in Uttar Pradesh. The deal is a sham and is in violation of several laws. It is a fraud committed to grab the Herald House building in Delhi, which is located in a prime area and is valued at `1,600 crore.”

Swamy said that going by the documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), the acquisition of AJL by Young Indian is wholly illegal.

On February 26, 2011, the AJL board had passed a resolution accepting that the All India Congress Committee (AICC) had loaned the group an unsecured interest-free loan of `90 crore.