Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson and member of parliament (MP) Sambit Patra on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the Opposition, referring to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as “traitor of the highest order”. He alleged connections between the Congress leader and individuals perceived to hold anti-India views.
During a press conference on Thursday, Patra mentioned of a ‘triangle’ and said that they were conspiring against India. “In this triangle, on one side it is George Soros, sitting in the United States and his foundation along with some agencies of America, another side of triangle is a big news portal named Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the last and the most important side of the triangle is Rahul Gandhi, ‘traitor of the highest order’,” he said.
He said he had no hesitation in calling the Leader of Opposition a traitor.
Citing a report by French media outlet ‘Mediapart’, he said that OCCRP, a global media agency funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, works for the interest of those who fund it. He even cited a few instances of the times the Congress leader used reports by OCCRP, which were targeted at defaming India.
“In July 2021, when the impact of Covid could be seen globally, OCCRP published an article that Brazil pulled out of $324 million contract for India’s Covaxin Covid-19 vaccine. An attempt was made to tarnish the image of the country. Immediately after the report, the Congress party did a press conference to attack the Indian government as well as the vaccine. OCCRP dictates and Rahul Gandhi follows,” the BJP MP stated.
Similarly, Gandhi targeted the government over the Pegasus issue following an OCCRP report and the media outlet’s “hit jobs” on Indian industrialists aimed at tanking Indian markets, Patra said.
The BJP leader said OCCRP also termed the legal proceedings against Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi in the National Herald case, in which the two Congress leaders have been accused of misappropriating assets worth hundreds of crores, “politically motivated”. Patra also highlighted Gandhi’s meetings with some people allegedly working against India’s interests to make his point.
A recent report by Mediapart revealed billionaire and philanthropist George Soros funded OCCRP, founded by Drew Sullivan. “In an email sent to OCCRP journalists in 2023, Sullivan admitted that it was “mostly true” that his NGO did not “do stories on US […] in the early years”, because all of its budget was paid for by Washington and the Open Society Foundations, founded by billionaire and philanthropist George Soros. “We couldn’t use US government or Soros money for US stories,” wrote Sullivan,” the report revealed.
“Since then, the OCCRP has attracted wider sources of funding, and Sullivan and the board told this investigation that the restriction of not using US funds to investigate US issues is not a problem given that the NGO can use other, non-US funds it receives to do so,” it added.
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