Centre harassing, creating an atmosphere of fear for Congress, says Mallikarjun Kharge

The Centre just wants to harass and create an atmosphere of fear and demoralise Congress workers, said a disgruntled Mallikarjun Kharge, on the Enforcement Directorate's question of party president Sonia Gandhi.

As Gandhi arrived in front of the government agency for the third day of questioning, after a 6-hour-long interrogation the previous day, the Leader of Opposition in an interview with The Indian Express, termed it a 'sheer harassment'.

"She (Sonia) is 75 years old. They are not giving her the respect an elderly person needs," he said. Kharge also stated that a team could have visited her residence to record her statement, instead of these repeated visits as if it is 'a big murder case'.

In terms of the National Herald case, Kharge claimed that the Congress only provided financial assistance to the newspaper, and that Sonia wanted to keep the institution, that played a great role in the freedom struggle, alive. "Young Indian’ is a not-for-profit company that only runs the ‘National Herald’ paper. No one can draw a single rupee of profit, salary or dividend from it, or benefit from it in any manner," he said in the interview.

Responding to a question on the suspension of several Opposition MPs from the Rajya Sabha, on Wednesday, he said "It is a completely wrong decision. They could have at least given a warning. Between adjournments of the House, they could have called the floor leaders and told them, what your members are doing is not right and I will have to take extreme action".

Twenty opposition MPs, were suspended from the Rajya Sabha for disrupting proceedings, on Wednesday.

Also Read: Suspended Rajya Sabha MPs to hold 50-hour relay protests in Parliament complex

The 20 MPs, suspended over the last two days, include seven from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), six from the DMK, three from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), two from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and one each from the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Kharge said that he has called a meeting of all floor leaders on Thursday morning, to fight for the revocation of suspension of MPs in both houses. Though they will keep protesting over Sonia's questioning, the main issue in the House will be forcing the government to hold discussions on price-rise and revocation of the suspension of the MPs, he added.