Foreign Funding Licence Of Gandhis’ NGOs Cancelled For Chinese Link, Says Amit Shah

Picture courtesy NDTV

New Delhi: No one can capture an inch of land till the Narendra Modi government is in power, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday, as the opposition demanded a discussion on clashes between Indian and Chinese forces along the LAC in Arunachal Pradesh.

Addressing reporters outside Parliament House, Shah said the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) registration of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) was cancelled as it allegedly got Rs 1.35 crore from the Chinese Embassy. Amit Shah also claimed that the Foundation headed by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi received Rs 50 lakh from Zakir Naik, founder of the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), which was banned by the government for its alleged involvement in terrorism, PTI reported.

On the border issue, the minister made it clear that the “BJP government will not allow any incursion on land. We will not leave an inch of land. The bravery shown by soldiers is appreciable, they have saved our land”. Shah said Lok Sabha proceedings were disrupted by the Congress citing clashes on the border, but the actual reason was that it did not want to hear facts about the RGF as a question was listed about it during the Question Hour in the House.

“Between 2005 and 2007, the RGF had received ₹ 1.35 crore from the Chinese embassy. After following due diligence, the home ministry cancelled the FCRA registration of the RGF,” he said.

According to law, any NGO which intends to receive foreign funding must register itself under the FCRA. Amit Shah alleged that while the Congress claimed that the money from the embassy was meant to undertake research on ties between India and China, the country wanted to know if the research covered the issue of land that India lost during the 1962 war. Recalling that China had raised questions about then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh on October 13, 2009, he asked if the party carried out research on the issue, the report added.

The FCRA registration of the RGF and Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT) was cancelled in October last year after an investigation carried out by an inter-ministerial committee formed by the home ministry in 2020. The trustees of the RGF are former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leaders P Chidambaram, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Suman Dubey, and Ashok Ganguly.

The trustees of the RGCT are Rahul Gandhi, Ashok Ganguly, Bansi Mehta, and Deep Joshi.