Kudankulam agitation: Centre plans to show foreign fund misuse by anti-nuke NGOs

NEW DELHI: The government’s confrontation with the activists over the anti-Kudankulam nuclear plant protests is set to intensify with the Centre planning to reveal documents showing how foreign funds were used to fuel local anger against the project.

Sources in the government said Foreign Contribution Regulation Act was violated by NGOs to carry out the agitation in Kudankulam. These funds, government officials said, were meant to be used in health and education programmes.

The money helped sustain the stir at Kudankulam. “We have received reports on NGOs in Tirunelveli and Thuthukudi around the Kudankulam project, being funded by organisations from the US and Scandinavian countries. This is based on home ministry investigations,” minister of state in the PMO V Narayanasamy said.

The activist groups have rejected this charge. People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy convenor SP Udaykumar has already threatened to file a defamation suit against the prime minister for insinuating foreign funds were used to organise the agitation.

Udaykumar, who has admitted that he is on the expert panel of reconciliation resource network attached to the Sweden-based Institute of Democratic and Electoral Alliance (IDEA), however, has denied that foreign funds were being used to buy local support for the anti-Kudankulam stir.

The current confrontation could also cause an emotional divide between the government and the Church leadership. The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) had initiated an email campaign asking the Union cabinet to rescind the project.