ED searches premises of people linked to Vadra’s office

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) yesterday said it searched the premises of some persons linked to the firms of Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, in connection with alleged commissions received by some people in defence deals, official sources said.

The sources refused to share the details of the defence deals.

The source said that the searches were carried out at three places in the national capital region and in Bengaluru.

According to an ED source, the searches at the Sukhdev Vihar office of Skylight Hospitality began at 11am.

In a statement, Vadra’s lawyer Suman Jyoti Khaitan described the searches as “politics of revenge and malicious vendetta”.

“For five years, the present rulers have used every trick in the book to persecute, to hound and to malign my client, Vadra. Government has unleashed all its agencies including ED, CBI and Income Tax to victimise Vadra in an utterly mala fide manner and to harm his reputation and attack his family members,” Khaitan said.

Meanwhile, terming the ED “raids” on the premises of Robert Vadra-owned Skylight Hospitality as “political vendetta”, the Congress yesterday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of acting like a “don” and “persecuting and hounding everyone opposed to him”.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said Modi was “unnerved” by the “sure shot defeat” in Assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Telangana and Chhattisgarh and the raids were aimed at diverting the narrative.