The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday termed the verdict of the Supreme Court refusing to transfer funds from PM CARES Fund to the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) a “resounding blow” to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and for his “band of ‘rent a cause’ activists.”
BJP president J.P. Nadda, tweeting right after the verdict, said it “shows that the truth shines despite the ill intent and malicious efforts of the Congress party and its associates”.
The tweet said, “Rahul Gandhi’s rants have been repeatedly dismissed by the common man who has overwhelmingly contributed to PM CARES. With the highest court also pronouncing its verdict, will Rahul & his ‘rent a cause’ activist army mend their ways or embarrass themselves further?”.
The Gandhi family had, for years, treated the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) as its “personal fiefdom“ and “brazenly transferred citizens’ hard-earned money from the PMNRF to its family trusts”, alleged Mr. Nadda.
Also read | PM-CARES Fund collected over ₹3,000 crore in 2019-20
“The country very well knows that the orchestrated smear campaign against PM CARES is an attempt by the Congress to wash its sins,” he said.
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, at a presser held on the same issue, said the BJP welcomed the Supreme Court’s verdict.
Subject to audits: Prasad
“PM CARES is a registered public trust made under Chairmanship of PM Narendra Modi for emergencies like COVID19 whereas PMNRF was made in 1948 by an oral observation of the then PM to serve the needs to refugees from,” he said, explaining the differences between various funds, and added that PM CARES was subject to audits.
Also read | PMO denies RTI plea seeking info on PM-CARES
“Out of the funds collected under PM CARES, ₹2000 crores has been spent procuring 50,000 ventilators, ₹1000 crores for relief work for inter state migrant workers and ₹100 crores as a research grant for COVID19 vaccine candidates from India. It’s all there in the website as well,” he stated.
Facebook controversy
On the Facebook row, Mr. Prasad said people whose political base had “shrunk like anything” were seeking to dominate discourse on these platforms. He asserted that everybody, regardless of his ideology, had got the right to air his views on these platforms.
“Rahul Gandhi believes that any organisation that does not work to his liking is acting under the pressure of the BJP and the RSS,” he stated.
It was for Facebook to decide what to do as far as the story in The Wall Street Journal was concerned, he noted.
Hundreds of pages of BJP supporters were also removed by Facebook, he pointed out. “If the platform is public, then every Indian regardless of his ideology and commitment has got the right to convey his view. It is a hard fact we need to know that people whose political base has shrunk like anything seek to dominate discourse on these platforms”, he said.
Mr. Gandhi’s comments during the Delhi Assembly polls that youth would hit Prime Minister Narendra Modi with sticks in six months if he didn’t address the issue of unemployment was a “text book case of instigation for violence”, he observed.
“Wasn't it a hate speech,” Mr. Prasad asked. He also referred to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's call for “aar par ki ladai” at a public meeting to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in this regard.
