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regular-article-logo Tuesday, 29 April 2025

Haryana land deal case: Priyanka Gandhi accompanies Robert Vadra to ED office on day 2

He was questioned for about five hours on Tuesday and his statement was recorded by the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act

Our Web Desk Published 16.04.25, 12:23 PM
Businessman Robert Vadra with wife and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra ahead of his appearance before the Enforcement Directorate on the second straight day for questioning in a 2008 Haryana land deal linked money laundering case, in New Delhi, Wednesday, April 16, 2025.

Businessman Robert Vadra with wife and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra ahead of his appearance before the Enforcement Directorate on the second straight day for questioning in a 2008 Haryana land deal linked money laundering case, in New Delhi, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. PTI

Robert Vadra, the businessman brother-in-law of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate on the second straight day on Wednesday in a 2008 Haryana land deal linked money laundering case.

He reached the ED office around 11 am accompanied by his wife Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Congress MP from Kerala's Wayanad. The two exchanged hugs before Robert Vadra went inside.

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Priyanka Gandhi stayed in the visitors' room at the agency's office 'Pravartan Bhawan' at APJ Abdul Kalam Road all through, and left with her husband when he was allowed to go home for lunch around 1:10 pm.

The MP's Z plus CRPF security waited outside.

The questioning is expected to continue after lunch break.

"Hum kisi se darte nahi hai... We are the target because we are relevant," said Vadra said just before going for questioning. "...I am not going to run away from the country. I will answer all the questions. I have no issues, use as many agencies as you want."

Vadra was questioned for about five hours on Tuesday and his statement was recorded by the federal probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), official sources said.

"I was surprised seeing the second summon from the agency as I have already appeared 15 times before the agency regarding the same case. I was questioned for 10 hours, and I gave 23,000 documents...I showed my statements from 2019 to the agency that you are asking the same questions that I answered in 2019, and the people of the agency were also shocked. I can just say that the agencies are being misused...", news agency ANI quoted Rober Vadra as saying.

The 56-year-old Vadra had termed the ED action "political vendetta" saying the people of the country "do not trust the probe agencies." He said he has always cooperated with investigative agencies and has furnished huge amount of documents, stressing that there needs to be a closure in cases which are as old as 20 years.

The probe against Vadra is linked to a land deal in Haryana's Manesar-Shikohpur (now sector 83) in Gurugram.

The land deal of February 2008 was done by a company named Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd, where Vadra was a director earlier, as it purchased a 3.5 acre land in Shikohpur from a firm named Onkareshwar Properties at a price of Rs 7.5 crore.

A Congress government led by chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was in power that time.

Four years later, in September, 2012, the company sold this 3.53 acre land to realty major DLF for Rs 58 crore.

The land deal got into controversy in October, 2012 after IAS officer Ashok Khemka, then posted as the director general of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum- Inspector-General of Registration of Haryana, cancelled the mutation of this categorising the transaction as violative of state consolidation Act and some related procedures.

The opposition Haryana BJP then had called this case an instance of "corruption" in land deals and that of "nepotism" hinting at Vadra's kinship with the first family of the Congress party.

Haryana Police had filed an FIR to probe this deal in 2018.

Vadra has been questioned multiple times by the federal probe agency in two different money laundering cases earlier.

With inputs from agencies

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