FCRA Bill sent to JPC for consultation; oppn calls it ‘attack’ on minorities
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New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday said the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, was referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for “more broad-based consultation”, while Opposition parties accused the Centre of launching an “organised attack” on minorities.
The Lok Sabha earlier in the day accepted the Centre’s resolution to refer the FCRA Bill, 2026, to a JPC amid massive uproar by Opposition members.
Speaking to IANS, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya said the FCRA was an important legislation and that referring it to the JPC would allow for wider consultation with stakeholders and experts.
“I am sure that the Bill will be even more robust and will be more refined by the exercise of the JPC, wherein more stakeholders will be consulted, more consensus will be built, and experts will be consulted to make the Bill more comprehensive,” he said.
BJP MP Naveen Jain described the FCRA Bill as the “country’s demand”, claiming that it was being opposed only by people outside India or those in India who were misusing foreign contributions.
“The government should know whether foreign donations are being used for activities by anti-national elements or for activities that are weakening the country. Every citizen of the country and the government has the right to know this,” he told IANS, asserting that the Bill did not harm anyone’s interests.
Jain also said the legislation should not be viewed through the prism of “vote-bank politics”, whether by Congress leaders or others, and that “national interest should be paramount”.
BJP leader Pratul Shahdeo said foreign funds could be misused by “anti-national forces” if adequate checks and balances were not put in place. He also alleged that Christian missionaries had been accused of using part of such funds for religious conversion, and expressed confidence that the Bill would eventually become law.
Opposition leaders, however, accused the BJP and the RSS of attempting to “choke funds” meant for NGOs.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, speaking to reporters outside Parliament House, alleged that the Bill was intended to ensure that funding remained only with the RSS.
“The RSS is supposedly an NGO, but it is unregistered. It has huge properties worth thousands of crores...it’s not open to audit or any scrutiny,” she alleged.
Moitra further alleged that the FCRA was being used to restrict funding to NGOs and charitable organisations, particularly those belonging to Christian and Muslim communities.
“Anything non-RSS is going to be choked,” she alleged.
Congress MP Hibi Eden described the FCRA Bill as an “organised attack against the minorities of this country”.
He said minorities and NGOs had been working extensively in education and healthcare in tribal and Naxal-affected areas. Referring to the Missionaries of Charity established by Mother Teresa, Eden said organisations receiving foreign funds were engaged in social-sector work and alleged that the amendment represented an attack on minorities by the Union government.
CPI-M leader Hannan Mollah said the Union government had “had to take a step back under pressure”, while maintaining that the Opposition’s objections were focused on what he described as the Bill’s basic flaws.
Mollah alleged that the government had already taken steps to take away Muslim properties in the name of the Waqf and claimed that the new legislation could be aimed at taking over Christian properties, including those belonging to colleges, universities and research institutions.
“What they say publicly is one thing, but the conspiracy within is based on the RSS formula. The RSS started with the idea that there are three enemies of our country: Muslims, Christians and Communists,” he alleged.
Earlier, Congress MP K.C. Venugopal said that instead of “bulldozing” the FCRA Bill through amid the din, the Union government had decided to send it to the JPC.
With IANS inputs