The Union Home Ministry has cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) licence of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) and the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (RGCT), NGOs associated with the Gandhi family, citing irregularities in foreign funding, sources told news agency PTI on Sunday, 23 October.
While RGF is headed by former Congress President Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and former union Minister P Chidambaram are members of the organisation.
Sonia Gandhi is also at the helm of affairs at the RGCT, while Rahul Gandhi and former Rajya Sabha MP Dr Ashok S. Ganguly are members, among others.
The action comes on the heels of investigations being carried out by a committee formed by the Home Ministry in 2020, after the BJP claimed that China contributed to RGF's funds.
The funds received by these organisations was being probed with respect to a suspected violation of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), and the Income Tax Act.
What Happened in 2020?
On June 25, 2020, the BJP questioned a purported donation that RGF had received, with BJP president J P Nadda saying that the foundation took $300,000 from the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese embassy in 2005-06 to carry out studies that were not in the national interest.
The allegations followed Rahul Gandhi's questioning of PM Narendra Modi’s leadership in context of developments at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh
Nadda then said that the Congress had right to talk about the country’s security after having taken money from China
On the same day, in a press briefing, former telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, too, questioned why the Congress had taken money from China
“The donors list of the RGF annual report in 2005-06 clearly shows that it received a donation from the Embassy of People’s Republic of China. We want to know why this donation was taken," Prasad said
The RGF annual report for 2005-06 mentions the Embassy of The People’s Republic of China as one of the “partner organisations and donors”
China’s name shows up in the list of donors for the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies (RGICS), a policy think tank promoted by the RGF
(With inputs from PTI, The Indian Express and NDTV)
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