Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has accused the State Department and “deep state” elements in the U.S. of trying to destabilise India in conjunction with a group of investigative journalists and opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.
The accusation comes as a surprise as New Delhi and Washington have forged a strong relationship in the last two decades and both have vowed to further strengthen ties despite some differences and irritants.
Gandhi’s Congress party used the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)’s articles that “singularly focused” on the Adani Group and its alleged closeness to the government to undermine Modi, the ruling party said on Thursday.
Appointment of Harmeet Dhillon
President-elect Donald Trump tapped Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican lawyer known for championing conservative causes and the GOP national committeewoman for California, to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
Trump announced Dhillon’s nomination as assistant attorney general, writing on social media that she has “stood up consistently to protect our cherished Civil Liberties.” Trump lauded Dhillon’s track record of taking on Big Tech companies, her defense of religious freedoms, and “suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers.”
During the first Trump administration, Dhillon gained prominence as a Republican advocate in liberal San Francisco. She argued on behalf of Trump supporters, who said they were attacked by protesters and that their conservative beliefs were causing them to be persecuted.
In 2016, she sued the city of San Jose, Calif., on behalf of Trump supporters who were attacked by counterprotesters, saying that city officials’ “inaction was colored by political viewpoint considerations.”
Dhillon also represented a Google employee who was fired after he circulated a memo arguing that men are naturally better suited for tech jobs than women due to biological differences. Google paired “open hostility for conservative thought” with discriminatory policies that harm white men, she wrote in a lawsuit against the tech giant.
“The nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to lead this critical civil rights office is yet another clear sign that this administration seeks to advance ideological viewpoints over the rights and protections that protect every person in this country,” said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
During the Covid pandemic, Dhillon filed multiple lawsuits challenging California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home orders on behalf of business owners who wanted to remain open and religious leaders who wanted to hold services. As opposition to pandemic restrictions grew, Dhillon’s advocacy earned her national media attention and tightened her ties to Trump.
More recently, Dhillon has defended ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by a former producer. She currently represents a California woman suing Kaiser Permanente over gender-affirming care she received as a teenager and later regretted.
Wiley added, “Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them. Rather than fighting to expand voting access, she has worked to restrict it.”
In 2020, Dhillon served as the co-chairwoman of Lawyers for Trump, a group of conservative lawyers lending their services to the Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results. Three years later, she mounted an unsuccessful run to replace then-RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Most recently, she led the Trump campaign’s election integrity team in Arizona during the 2024 general election.
Anani corruption cases
Group chair Gautam Adani and seven others were indicted last month in the U.S. for being part of a $265 billion scheme to bribe Indian officials – allegations the group has termed “baseless”.
OCCRP’s articles have also accused state-sponsored hackers in India of using Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to target government critics.
The BJP has previously accused Gandhi, the OCCRP and 92-year-old billionaire financier-philanthropist George Soros of attacking Modi.
On Thursday, it cited a French media report that said that OCCRP was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and “other deep state figures” like Soros.
“The Deep State had a clear objective to destabilise India by targeting Prime Minister Modi,” the BJP said in a series of messages on X.
“It has always been the U.S. State Department behind this agenda…OCCRP has served as a media tool for carrying out a deep state agenda,” it said.
Sambit Patra, a BJP national spokesperson and lawmaker, repeated the accusations at an official media briefing by the party on Thursday.
“A French investigative media group…has revealed that… 50% of OCCRP’s funding comes directly from the U.S. State Department,” Patra said. “OCCRP has served as a media tool for carrying out a deep state agenda.”
The State Department, US AID, Soros and the Congress party did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Indian foreign ministry also did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling party’s accusation against the State Department.
OCCRP said in a statement it was an independent media outlet and not associated with any political party.
“The U.S. government, while providing some funding to OCCRP, has no say in our editorial processes and no control over our reporting,” it said.
The government has lately been facing heat over the U.S. indictment of Gautam Adani, who opposition leaders say Modi has always protected, and the country’s parliament was suspended multiple times last week as opposition lawmakers demanded a discussion on the issue.
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