The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) targeted Indian industrialists with motivated reports with the ulterior motive of bringing about a regime change in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Thursday.
In an apparent reference to OCCRP-led media investigation against billionaire Gautam Adani published last August, BJP Member of Parliament (MP) and national spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters at the party headquarters that the "hit jobs" were purely driven by the motive of fomenting economic instability and bringing about an "earthquake" in India.
"These reports by OCCRP tried to lower the share market prices through scare-mongering, so that Indian retail investors invested in the capital markets incurred losses and would rise up against the Indian government... and that would bring about a regime change. That was what drove OCCRP's attack against our industrialists," Patra stated.
The Indian MP asserted that OCCRP had acted as a "mouthpiece" of Democratic Party donor George Soros and certain US government agencies, whose main job was to create instability in other countries. The OCCRP had alleged that Adani family members covertly channelled funds from Mauritius to manipulate stock market prices in India. A Supreme Court expert committee said last year that it found "no evidence" to back charges of stock manipulation.
He also referred to other reports by the OCCRP, including the allegations published by OCCRP partners in 2021 and 2022 that India's Intelligence Bureau bought a military-grade spyware from an Israeli company to snoop on opposition politicians, journalists and civil society among others. The charges were denied by the Indian government on the floor of the house in August 2021.
“OCCRP stoked a massive political row in India through the Pegasus report in July 2021. The issue was rejected by the Supreme Court in August 2022, he said, adding that the current parliamentary disruption being witnessed in India was also due to reports by OCCRP.
Addressing the briefing, BJP MP K Laxman highlighted that all the OCCRP reports were published just before the parliamentary sessions in India, describing them as a "suspicious and conspicuous attack on national interest".
"Whenever the Parliament begins, these anti-India forces at the international level try to come up with a fabricated issue and disturb the parliament proceedings... and they don't want India to emerge as one of the leading countries in the world under Modiji's leadership," Laxman said.
He said that a BJP MP had sought a parliamentary debate on OCCRP and other such agencies, but the House was adjourned soon after.
Laxman questioned the opposition parties for "disrupting" the House when the issue was raised, stating that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) wanted an "earnest discussion" on the matter.