In a major development that is bound to create more tensions between the Congress and the ruling BJP, the Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday set up an inter-ministerial committee to coordinate investigations into violation of various legal provisions of PMLA, Income Tax Act, FCRA etc by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
As per the ministry's notification, a Special Director of the ED will head the committee.The committee will also investigate two other organisations: The Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust and the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust.
The latest development amid allegations by BJP chief JP Nadda that the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which is headed by Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, had received funds from the Chinese government.
On June 29, Nadda had alleged that the RGF, which is headed by Sonia Gandhi, received donations every year from the Chinese embassy between 2005-09 and from the "tax haven" of Luxembourg, which is full of "hawala transactions", between 2006-09
NGOs and companies with "deep commercial interests" also donated to the foundation, he alleged.
Nadda had also asked the Congress to come clean on its "links" with China, and the details of its MoU with the Communist Party of China.
The BJP chief had also attacked former prime minister Manmohan Singh, accusing him of allocating Rs 100 crore to the foundation as the finance minister in 1991 when India was going through its "worst financial crisis".
"Since then it has regularly received donation from ministries. Yet, the RGF refuses to be audited by the CAG or even come under the Right to Information Act. What does Manmohan Singh have to say on this monumental loot and organised plunder," Nadda asked.
The Congress, however, dismissed Nadda's attack on the RGF over alleged donations to it from the Chinese embassy as a "diabolical game of deception" by the ruling party to divert attention from the alleged Chinese occupation of Indian territory.
