The political slugfest over the India-China border tensions continues unabated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress accusing each other of compromising national security. The war of words escalated further on Thursday when the BJP alleged that the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation had received donations from the Chinese embassy in India in 2005-06.
The BJP alleged that the foundation, in its annual report of 2005-06, had included the Chinese donations in the list of general donors. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it was after taking this donation that the foundation recommended a free trade agreement with China.
"Did the then UPA government take a bribe from the Chinese? Is it not true that after taking this donation, the foundation recommended a free trade agreement with China, which was heavily tilted in favour of the Chinese?," Prasad asked.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson of the RGF and its nine-member board includes senior Congress leaders like Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and P. Chidambaram.
According to the RGF website, from 1991 to 2009, the foundation worked on a number of critical issues, including health, literacy, science and technology, women’s and children’s development, disability support, Panchayati Raj institutions, natural resource management, and libraries. It says in 2010, the foundation decided to focus on education.
On Tuesday, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav had accused the previous Congress governments of signing bilateral pacts that suited Beijing's interests.
"While China continued to nibble into Indian side of the undemarcated LAC, the Congress government did not engage it militarily and instead went on to sign several bilateral agreements that suited Chinese interests," Madhav had claimed.
The Congress had said that the current border crisis is attributable to the "mismanagement" of the BJP-led government and the "wrong policies" pursued by it.
"Misfortunes do not come singly. India has been hit by a terrible economic crisis, a pandemic of huge proportions and, now, by a full-blown crisis on the borders with China. Much of each crisis is attributable to the mismanagement of the BJP-led NDA government and the wrong policies pursued by it," Sonia Gandhi said on Tuesday.
Reacting to this, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra accused the Congress of deriving "sadistic pleasure" by "showing" that India has lost land to China in the ongoing military standoff in Ladakh and asserted that not an inch of Indian territory has been seized by the neighbouring country during the current crisis.
