NEW DELHI, Feb 21: A row erupted on Friday over a media report, which claimed that an amount of USD 21 million approved by the USAID was meant for Bangladesh and not India, with the Congress demanding an apology from the BJP and alleging that the ruling party’s narrative was aimed at diverting attention from its own use of foreign funds to destabilise past governments led by the grand old party.
The Congress also reiterated its demand from the government for a white paper on the USAID funding as well as funding by other such agencies in India.
Citing the media report, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, “Lies first mouthed in Washington. Lies then amplified by BJP’s Jhoot Sena. Lies made to be debated on Godi media.”
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“Lies now thoroughly exposed. Will the liars apologise?” he asked in a post on X.
Since the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced on February 16 that it had “cancelled”, among a string of projects, the USAID funding of “USD 21 million for voter turnout in India”, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has accused the Congress of using external influence in India’s election process.
In a speech in Miami on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said: “Why do we need to spend USD 21 million for voter turnout in India? Wow, USD 21 million! I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected.”
“Facts show all may have jumped the gun. That USD 21 million … was sanctioned in 2022 for Bangladesh, not India,” the “Indian Express” report said, citing documents.
BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya said the report discusses USD 21 million in funding to Bangladesh in 2022 but misrepresents the reference to a USD-21 million funding tranche intended to “promote” the voter turnout in India.
“What Indian Express conveniently sidesteps is the 2012 Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Election Commission of India — under the leadership of S Y Quraishi — and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), an organisation linked to George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which is primarily funded by USAID,” Malviya said in a post on X.
Addressing a press conference at the party’s 24, Akbar Road office here, the Congress’s media and publicity department head Pawan Khera alleged that the entire “USD-21 million USAID funds narrative” perpetrated by the BJP, Modi government’s ministers, its economic advisor, the party’s IT department head, the RSS-BJP ecosystem and a section of the “BJP-friendly media” was done to divert attention from their “own sins” of using foreign funds to destabilise Congress governments of the past.
Citing the media report, Khera claimed that the truth has come out that the “USD 21 million USAID funds” were not given to India, but to Bangladesh.
“Official documents prove that. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji’s best friend Trump had perhaps intentionally or unintentionally made a faux pas through the DOGE. But the fact that the RSS-BJP ecosystem shamelessly latched onto it, without examining the facts, tells you that it wanted to hide its own acts of commissions in damaging India’s democracy,” he said.
The Congress leader said former prime minister Indira Gandhi was right when she pointed out towards the “foreign hand” of the BJP’s ideological forefathers and the erstwhile Janata Party.
“It is no secret that the RSS took the CIA’s assistance during Emergency and in the run-up to it. P N Dhar’s book, ‘Indira Gandhi, the ‘Emergency’, and Indian Democracy’, clearly chronicles how ‘the US showered praise on J P (Jayaprakash Narayan) and his role in fighting the Indira Gandhi government in 1974’. The Nixon administration wanted to punish her for her defiance to the US in 1971 and conducting India’s first nuclear test later,” he claimed.
Khera further alleged that the RSS orchestrated the Anna Hazare-Arvind Kejriwal “India Against Corruption” movement to overthrow the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government with the help of foreign aid, especially from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Ford Foundation.
“Is it not true that exactly a month ago, on January 21, former Union minister Smriti Irani attended a panel discussion organised by the USAID in Davos under the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum? Is it not true that Smriti Irani herself has stated that she has served as the USAID goodwill ambassador to India for four years?” he asked.
If collaborations with US agencies amount to deep-state activities, then why did Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis discuss opportunities on a collaboration with the USAID on November 10, 2022, the Congress leader asked.
“Let it be clear, we do not consider global partnerships, developmental agencies, aid mechanisms, such as the USAID, as unscrupulous. It is the BJP that first started the deep-state narrative and demonising the USAID. However, we have enough evidence that the RSS-BJP has been taking covert assistance from foreign agencies to destablise Indian democracy and bulldoze our Constitution,” Khera alleged. (PTI)
