We will revive National Herald soon: Kapil Sibal

NEW DELHI: Asserting that there was no issue of corruption or any wrong doing in the National Herald case, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal while speaking at “Agenda Aaj Tak” conclave on Saturday said the sole effort of the Congress behind all restructuring exercise was to restart the newspaper started by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and was wedded to the party’s ideology.

“We formed the new entity to help Associated Journal that owns National Herald to write-off its debt so that a new start can be made to restart the newspaper…We are working on it. In the entire process neither Congress President Sonia Gandhi nor Vice-President Rahul Gandhi have made financial gains and will neither make any profits in future. It is wrong to put them on trail. We will fight it out in courts,” he said, and added that all allegations being leveled against them by so-called shareholders were baseless.

Asked why the Congress was stalling Parliament’s functioning on the issue, he said it was not against what is happening in the court, it was against the political vendetta that was being carried out against them. He also clarified that the “I am Indira Gandhi’s bahu” statement by Sonia Gandhi was a political one given to those who are trying intimidate her and carrying out persona vendetta against her.

He said the Congress was not against GST and wanted the Bill to pass in Parliament provided that the Centre addresses concerns raised by the party. He pointed out that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who as Chief Minister of Gujarat and current Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his party, BJP, who stalled the progressive reforms for years when in Opposition.

Mr. Sibal also said the “zero loss theory” in the telecom scam has been wrongly attributed to him. “It was the media that had put words in my mouth…I never said it. What I said was vis a vis the spectrum policy which said spectrum cannot be sold. ”