French investigative journalism outlet Mediapart on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of distorting its reporting to promote a “conspiracy theory” involving the United States government, billionaire George Soros and the Congress party, reported The Wire.
The BJP had on Thursday cited a Mediapart investigation into the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or OCCRP, to allege that Soros and the US Department of State were backing a campaign to “destabilise” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
The OCCRP has published several investigative reports highlighting alleged financial misconduct by the Adani Group.
In a statement on Sunday, Mediapart’s publisher and director Carine Fouteau said: “Mediapart firmly condemns the instrumentalisation of its recently published investigative article about OCCRP by the Bharatiya Janata Party of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in order to serve BJP’s political agenda and attack press freedom.”
The BJP had “wrongly exploited Mediapart’s article in order to spread fake news that we never published”, The Wire quoted Fouteau as saying.
“There are no facts available supporting the conspiracy theory promoted by BJP,” Fouteau said while expressing solidarity with “courageous Indian and international journalists who report and investigate in India”.
The controversy erupted on Thursday when BJP legislators used Mediapart’s report to attack Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Parliament, accusing him of conspiring with the OCCRP and Soros.
BJP MP Sambit Patra reiterated the claims at a press conference, alleging that the US Department of State was complicit in the effort as it had provided funds to the OCCRP through the United States Agency for International Development, also known as USAID.
The BJP’s claims were shared widely on social media, with the party’s official X account promoting the alleged conspiracy and tying it to the US government.
On Saturday, the US embassy in India said it was “disappointing that the ruling party in India would make these kinds of accusations”.
Since 2018, Mediapart has published several reports alleging corruption in the Modi government’s purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from French manufacturer Dassault Aviation. The Modi government and the BJP have consistently dismissed the allegations.
Mediapart’s most recent report on the Rafale deal from December 2023 accused New Delhi of obstructing a French judicial inquiry into the corruption claims.
“It is now an established fact: the Indian government of ultra-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen to bury at all costs the corruption case concerning the sale of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter jets to India,” Mediapart had written in its December report.
The media outlet’s investigation into the OCCRP relied on public documents and interviews with the investigative journalism group’s founder Drew Sullivan and senior US officials conducted by German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk.
Mediapart reported that OCCRP had “accepted several US government donations that it is obliged to spend on investigations into certain countries that Washington considers to be a priority matter”. These included Russia, Venezuela, Malta, Cyprus and the operations of Mexican drug cartels. There was no mention of India in any of the reports.
After Mediapart’s article was published, the OCCRP rejected the BJP’s claims, calling them “simply wrong” and maintaining that “OCCRP has no limits on its journalism and no donor influences our reporting”.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Pawan Khera on Monday accused the BJP of jeopardising India’s bilateral relationships as part of a conspiracy to protect Adani Group founder Gautam Adani, who is seen as being close to Modi.
“Since the Winter Session of Parliament started, we have been trying to expose this controversy…how the BJP and its government have been trying to protect one and they are even ready to risk our international relations,” said Khera in a video message.
“This conspiracy has been around since 2002, but it was earlier confined to one state,” Khera claimed in an apparent reference to Modi’s tenure as the chief minister of Gujarat between 2001 and 2014. “From 2014, it has become an international conspiracy.”
“No one has the right to risk our relationships with other countries to save one businessman,” Khera said.
In an apparent reference to Gautam Adani’s recent indictment by a US court, Khera added: “If a country helps the industrialist, they are given a clean chit…while those countries that conduct a probe against him are accused of being part of a conspiracy. What sort of foreign policy is this?”
The BJP reiterated on Monday that its allegations about the US State Department relating to the OCCRP were based on Mediapart’s report and that it was up to Washington to clarify.
“In this context, during our presser on this issue, we had quoted a media report by a French publication, published in Sarajevo in which it was made clear that the OCCRP project was funded partially by the US State Department and by George Soros,” The Hindu quoted Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi as saying. “It is therefore incumbent on them [US State Department] to clarify whether what has been said in the report is correct or not.”
“Therefore the US State Department should clarify whether or not they are involved in such activities and if they are not, then they should withdraw their support from such OCCRP organisations,” the BJP leader added.
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