Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Sambit Patra on Thursday called Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi “a traitor of the highest order”, alleging a link between the Congress leader and international forces “trying to destabilise” India.
BJP MPs K Laxman and Sambit Patra cited a report in the French media outlet ‘Mediapart’ to target Rahul Gandhi.
“I have no hesitation in saying he (Rahul Gandhi) is a traitor of the highest order,” news agency PTI quoted Sambit Patra as saying.
Patra claimed that billionaire investor George Soros and some US-based agencies, investigative media platform Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), and Gandhi occupy three sides of a “dangerous” triangle, which is trying to destabilise India and stoke public disaffection for a regime change.
BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi referred to the Mediapart (French outlet) report about news portal OCCRP in Rajya Sabha on Thursday, saying it has claimed that OCCRP has funding of foreign governments and has connections with billionaire George Soros which focuses on India also.
If they are getting 70 per cent of their resources from one source, then they cannot be neutral, BJP leader Sambit Patra said, adding that Rahul Gandhi has held press conferences to target the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government based on OCCRP’s reports.
‘Attempt to malign India’
Gandhi attacked the government following an OCCRP report in July 2021 that Brazil had cancelled a $324 million order for Covaxin, a Covid vaccine prepared by a private Indian firm, Patra added.
It was an attempt to malign India and the Congress leader held the press conference based on the report even though the order was cancelled in June, he said.
Similarly, Rahul 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 Rahul 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”.
“OCCRP and Rahul Gandhi are two bodies and one soul,” he said.
Patra also highlighted Gandhi’s meetings with some people allegedly working against India’s interests to make his point.
“Rahul Gandhi does not want India to move ahead. He does not want the Indian Parliament to function,” he said, claiming that some of these reports were timed with Parliament’s sessions so that the Congress could disrupt its proceedings over “fake” news.
Instead of protesting, the Congress should have debated with the BJP over the issue in Parliament, he said.
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