What may surprise us is the logic in the IB report that leads us to the relation between AAP and Congress vice-president.
Remember the statement given by former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh after the Intelligence Bureau singled out Greenpeace in its report to the central government? Ramesh had defended the organization by saying: “Greenpeace has a domestic funding largely. A large number of local philanthropists have funded Greenpeace.”
Now Ramesh is no spokesperson of the NGO but why did he come forward to issues a statement despite the gravity of the situation?
A recent report in the Sunday Guardian (SG) may have the answer. The report gives a detailed account as to how Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi protected some of the foreign NGOs. It also says that “UPA ministers close to Rahul Gandhi, such as Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh, were also seen as deferential towards selected NGOs that were targeting development projects across India.”
According to the report in SG, Rahul favours gobal NGOs. Quoting sources from “within the Congress party”, SG claims that “some key foreign NGO functionaries have access to him (Rahul) on a scale denied even to Cabinet ministers during the ten years of the UPA government.”
The IB report on NGOs had not only singled out Greenpeace, but had also mentioned a dozen of other foreign funded NGOs, including Dutch organizations Cordaid and HIVOS, of stalling development project in India. It also had accused a political party – namely AAP – of being involved in such activities.
The fund flow from one NGO to another political party pretty much showed their relation. But what may surprise us is the logic that leads us to the relation between AAP and Congress vice-president.
According to SG, “The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has identified nine individuals in Greenpeace who have been visiting India several times each year throughout the period in office of the Manmohan Singh government. These individuals are all from advanced countries, and at least three of them were active in Tahrir Square in Egypt in 2011, and more recently, two were involved in the Maidan Square agitation in 2013, which resulted in a change of regime in Ukraine’s Kiev. The functionaries of Greenpeace who are under investigation have met with a wide cross-section of political activists, including from major political parties, and have given several dozen activist leaders training in political protest and in ensuring control of the streets, so that the normal functioning of government gets choked.”
Now this has AAP written large over it.
AAP is an anti-establishment party which is a conglomeration of such political activists. You name any – Medha Patkar, SP Udayakumar or the chief Arvind Kejriwal himself – they have always been against the development agenda of the government and have done their every bit to disrupt the normal functioning of the government.
As mentioned in an earlier article on Youngisthan, Patkar, Udayakumar and Kejriwal – all have their umbilical cords attached to such organizations. While Patkar influenced judiciary to get desirable results in her cases which indirectly helped foreign elements, Udayakumar and Kejriwal tried to stall Kudankulam power plant and development along the region due to it. The Cordaid and Hivos, which are stalling uranium mining in the North-East India, have funded Kejriwal and his IAC for long.
Now coming back to the SG report, At least four of the nine foreign nationals active in Greenpeace operations in India, who have been identified by the IB as having been hyperactive in orchestrating protests against major projects in the country, “have close links to those in Rahul Gandhi’s inner circle”, according to a Congress functionary. The functionary claimed that “at least two of the nine are personally known to Rahul, who met them and others from such outfits when abroad”. Those close to Rahul Gandhi deny this, saying that “the Congress vice-president is a patriot who would never do anything to hurt the interests of India”.
Although the IB had built up a sizeable dossier on these foreign nationals over the past three years, and had warned of the disruptive nature of their activities as also their intimate contact with local activists and politicians, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and successive Home Ministers refused to take action against the NGOs.
These NGOs, it should be noted, house the children of key officials in the government and opinion builders of the country on exorbitant salaries. Among these opinion builders, the first name comes of AAP leader and psephologist Yogendra Yadav who was a mentor of Rahul and part of Congress government for quite some years.
Also, many of these dignitaries have their own NGOs which get foreign aid from the benefactors of other big NGOs. It includes Kejriwal and Patkar’s NGO.
If we remember a report published by some leading newspapers earlier this year where Yadav had accepted that he visited Rahul at his residence after the investigation for violation of FCRA on the AAP was directed by Supreme Court, we would also remember that the UPA government took unnecessary long six months to tell the court that it wanted more time on the same. And, interestingly, it was Kapil Sibal at the helm of all these affairs as the law ministers in the UPA government.
As details of Rahul Gandhi’s visitors and travels remain secret and the man himself remains inaccessible, there is no way to prove any claims. But the logic follows that Rahul protected NGOs and, in turn, protected AAP.
So, should we now consider the IB report evidence against Rahul-Kejriwal tie up?
