The BJP has found a strategy to counter Congress's protests over the Adani issue by leveraging the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reports. The ruling party, along with the government, has decided to use these reports as a tool to target Congress throughout the remainder of the Parliament session.
On Thursday, the BJP held a press conference and raised the OCCRP issue in both Houses of Parliament. The party’s strong attack on Rahul Gandhi, calling him a traitor and anti-national, marks one of the most significant assaults on the newly appointed Leader of the Opposition. In response, Congress has strongly condemned these accusations.
Sources quoted by News18 indicate that both the Adani controversy and the OCCRP reports may feature in the upcoming Parliament debate on the Constitution, scheduled for next week in the Lok Sabha. Senior BJP leaders told News18 that although the Adani issue may not be directly relevant to the debate on the Constitution, the BJP plans to counter it with the OCCRP issue if Congress continues its protests. This week, the Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, has been staging protests outside the main gate of Parliament over the Adani matter.
The BJP argues that a covert deep state network has focused its efforts on India through the OCCRP, which has published several reports centered on the country. According to the BJP, these reports align with the Congress party's agenda, despite the fact that some of the issues raised, such as the Pegasus matter, have been dismissed by the Supreme Court. The BJP claims that the Congress, the INDIA bloc, and its leaders have leveraged the unverified and sensationalized reports from the OCCRP to further their political interests. They accuse these leaders of using these compromised sources to harm India’s growth narrative for their own gain.
A recent investigation by the French publication 'Mediapart' has raised new concerns about the Sarajevo-based OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project). According to their report, the OCCRP is funded by the US government and organizations associated with George Soros.
Mediapart’s response
In its response, Mediapart’s publisher and director Carine Fouteau in a statement on December 7, said, “Mediapart firmly condemns the instrumentalisation of its recently published investigative article about OCCRP by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in order to serve BJP’s political agenda and attack press freedom.”
She further asserted that the “BJP wrongly exploited Mediapart’s article in order to spread fake news that we never published”.
“There are no facts available supporting the conspiracy theory promoted by BJP,” said Mediapart’s publisher, expressing “full support to the courageous Indian and international journalists who report and investigate in India”.