NEW DELHI: New Delhi: Returning fire after the BJP’s claims linking USAID funds to the Congress, the AICC Friday said RSS and BJP have had traditional links to American money since the early 60s and have benefited politically from it. It argued the said $21 million flagged by the ruling party was in fact a fund meant for Bangladesh.
AICC spokesman Pawan Khera said there are books and documents detailing that RSS took money from the US and the CIA to destabilise the Congress govts led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, including during the JP agitation, and a former US spy had even written that there was an assassination plot against then Congress chief K Kamaraj. He said the erstwhile Jan Sangh leaders on the US tour used the American media for propaganda against Indira Gandhi. “The US wanted to get back at the Indian govt for its humiliation in 1971, and they became puppets of the US govt,” he said.
Khera said investigative media reports have exposed that the claims of $21 million to India were a lie, as they were meant for Bangladesh.
The AICC expressed concern that such massive USAID funding to the neighbouring country went unnoticed, which was followed by protests that destabilised Bangladesh and brought down its govt. “What were the govt and its agencies doing? Does not destabilisation in Bangladesh affect India? There was a time, like in 1971, when even the US would back down in front of the Indian govt. And now such large sums pour into Bangladesh and the Indian govt gets no whiff of it. It’s a slap on the govt’s face,” Khera said.
Congress said any fund that the BJP is claiming about would only have been to help the BJP. He said there was massive Ford Foundation funding for the Anna Hazare-Kejriwal led protests in 2012 to destabilise the UPA govt, and RSS and its affiliated foundations were part of the conspiracy.