The Congress will revive the National Herald, its defunct English-language newspaper in the coming months, PTI reported on Wednesday. The party-owned Associated Journals Ltd. announced the revival of the paper, naming senior journalist Neelabh Mishra its editor-in-chief.
Congress treasurer and AJL Managing Director Motilal Vora (pictured above) said the paper will be revived alongside Hindi daily Navjivan and Urdu newspaper Quami Awaz. Vora said Mishra had been appointed editor for both the Hindi and English newspapers along with AJL’s digital holdings “with immediate effect”. The Congress official said the decision to resume publication over the coming months was taken at an Extraordinary General Meeting of the AJL at Lucknow in January.
The Herald, which stopped publication in 2008, came under the spotlight earlier this year after court summons were issued to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in connection with allegations of corruption in the AJL filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy.
The complaint that was filed in 2012 accused the Gandhis and other major shareholders in the AJL of providing an interest-free loan of Rs 90.25 crore to the company and then transferring the debt to Young India Limited, a holding in which both party leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi own a 38% stake. Earlier this year, the Enforcement Directorate registered a criminal case in the matter under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The Haryana State Vigilance Bureau has also registered a case of corruption against former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for allegedly re-allotting a plot to the AJL in Panchkula in 2005.
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