NEW DELHI: Stepping up attack on the Congress on the anniversary of Emergency, the BJP on Thursday accused the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) of taking donations from the Chinese embassy and scripting studies to favour free trade agreement (FTA), which favoured China. The party also lobbed the dynasty barb at the Grand Old Party once again.
Taking out a list of partner organisations of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and its donors for 2005-06, BJP chief J P Nadda and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that the Foundation received donations from the Chinese embassy to the tune of $3,00,000 and soon commissioned a series of studies to advocate free trade agreement with China. The BJP claimed that the trade deficit with China ballooned 33 times between 2003-04 and 2013-14, when the Congress-led UPA was in power.
The RGF is headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and its board consists of former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former finance minister P Chidambaram, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Prasad told reporters that the reasons for the Congress to not condemn China for the LAC violence could be the close relations as substantiated in the donations received by the RGF. He said the reports by the RGF in 2009-11 strongly advocated FTA with China, arguing that the comprehensive trade pact would favour India.
The BJP demanded that the Congress should come clean on the “MoU signed with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2008”. Union Home Minister Amit Shah also trained his guns at the Congress, wondering the link between the Emergency and the dynasty of the party. “Why does the Emergency mindset remain; why are leaders who don’t belong to the dynasty can’t speak up; why are leaders getting frustrated in the Congress? The interests of one family prevailed over party interests and national interests,” he tweeted.