The Congress on Sunday sought details from BJP chief J P Nadda about certain funding sources to the BJP and the RSS from China and demanded disclosure of its link to the “China Association for International Friendly Contact” (CAIFC) and its persistent interactions with the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The attack comes two days after BJP President J P Nadda had alleged that the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which is headed by Sonia Gandhi, continuously received donations from the Chinese embassy between 2005 and 2009, from the “tax haven” of Luxemburg between 2006 and 2009 and NGOs with commercial interests.
TheCongress sought to clarify the issue late on Saturday saying the grants to RGF accounts were duly audited and statutory returns were filed under Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) to the Government of India/
In turn, it attacked the BJP and RSS for receiving funds from China and under the leadership of three party chiefs at different times- Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Amit Shah.
“This (RGF) grant has been duly reflected in all filings to the income tax and the Home Ministry and no authority has ever found any wrongdoing of any nature. Pursuant to the unprecedented Tsunami in the last week of 2004, RGF received a modest amount of Rs. 20 lakh from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund in the Financial Year 2005 which was duly utilised to undertake relief activities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” Congress said in a statement.
Congress, in another statement on Sunday, also said that the allegations by Nadda were his flailing attempts at distraction and diversion from the issues of national security and territorial integrity.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the BJP chief has made it his “favourite pastime to mislead the country by making sensational claims”.
Surjewala accused the BJP of receiving foreign funding. Surjewala also said the BJP leadership was scared of the questions being asked on its “deep-rooted” Chinese connections.
Surjewala posed 10 counter questions to Nadda in response to the questions posed by the latter to attack the Congress. “What is the historical relationship between BJP and CCP spoken about by the then BJP President, Rajnath Singh
during the visit of a CCP delegation on January 30th, 2007 and reiterated by him during the meeting with members of Politburo of the CCP on October 17th, 2008,” Surjewala asked.
Congress also sought explanation as to why the RSS) go to China in January 2009 on an invite from the CCP? Why was a delegation of RSS invited by the CCP despite it not being a political party and what discussions were held on our sensitive State of Arunachal Pradesh as also Tibet?
It further asked why did the then BJP President, Nitin Gadkari go to China on a five-day visit on January 19th, 2011 at the invitation of the Communist Party of China (CCP)?
Why did the then BJP President, Amit Shah send a delegation of MP's/MLA's in November 2014 to China for a week-long study in “The Party School” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)?.
Besides questioning the several visits by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China, Congress asked BJP to make public the list of all its donors and the amounts received including from all foreign sources including individuals, entities, organisations, and governments.
Surjewala also questioned funding to Vivekananda Foundation and the India Foundation and demanded that the ruling side declare the name of donors from whom it has received thousands of crores in donations through electoral bonds.
