Roving Periscope: Outgoing Biden’s team terms the BJP’s charges “disappointing”
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Reacting to the BJP’s accusation that the US State Department, and the Deep State in the outgoing Joe Biden administration, ran an “anti-Modi” agenda, an American spokesman has said it was “disappointing.”
India’s chief ruling party, the BJP, locking horns with the Biden team of Democrats and the Left-Liberals, is being viewed as music to US President-elect Donald Trump who is set to take the oath on January 20, 2025.
The Trump 2.0 team has also announced to dismantle the Democrats’ “Deep State.”
During the Lok Sabha election campaign this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, in a media interview, hinted that some ‘foreign countries” were not only interested in Indian polls but also trying to ‘influence’ them.
The BJP On Thursday alleged that the Democrats-run US State Department was behind the selective and targeted attacks against PM Modi and business magnate Gautam Adani.
Quoting a US Embassy spokesman in New Delhi, the media reported on Saturday that it was “disappointing.”
Responding to social media posts released by the BJP on “X” (formerly Twitter), including the one that the US was behind an investigative reporting portal Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the spokesman claimed it was a “champion of media freedom around the world,” and did not influence editorial decisions by the media organizations.
Interestingly, the US spokesperson did not deny the allegation it was funding groups like OCCRP, but said that the US government “works with independent organizations on programming that supports professional development and capacity building training for journalists,” adding that this “programming does not influence the editorial decisions or direction of these organizations.”
The BJP had also accused the controversial US billionaire businessman, George Soros, of funding anti-India propaganda.
“It is disappointing that the ruling party in India would make these kinds of accusations,” the spokesperson for the US Embassy, was quoted as saying.
“The US has long been a champion of media freedom around the world. A free and independent press is an essential component of any democracy, enabling informed and constructive debate and holding those in power accountable,” the spokesperson added, apparently referring to the BJP’s allegation that news reports, including a story in the Financial Time,s linking PM Modi and Adani and a series of reports in the OCCRP on the Adani group’s projects in Kenya and Myanmar, had been funded by the US State department.
Besides, the BJP cited the OCCRP reports on Pegasus spy software allegedly used for the surveillance of Indian journalists and even Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This is the first time the Indian chief ruling party has directly attacked the outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration for planting media stories critical of the Modi government which it said had a damaging impact on “India’s image.”
In the last few months, bilateral relations suffered after the alleged US support to Khalistan terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, implicating an Indian official in the alleged plot to murder him.
A few months ago, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned a senior US diplomat after the State Department commented on the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in an alleged corruption case, and sharply objected to its report on ‘threats’ to religious freedom in India.
The fresh controversy erupted days after the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchanges Commission filed indictments in American courts implicating Adani and his associates on claims of bribery, exchange fraud, and other violations of US law.
