NEW DELHI: Sunita Viswanath, a United States-based girls’s and human rights activist, is within the media highlight over her alleged assembly with Congress chief Rahul Gandhi throughout his current go to to the nation. Sunita Viswanath can also be a detailed affiliate of George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, who’s also referred to as a staunch critic of the Narendra Modi authorities.
What’s The Controversy Surrounding Sunita Viswanath?
Addressing a press convention on Wednesday, Union Minister Smriti Irani made a blistering assault on the Congress social gathering and questioned Rahul Gandhi’s alleged assembly within the USA with Sunita Vishwanath. During her press convention, Irani claimed that Sunita Vishwanath is a member of an organisation owned by billionaire investor George Soros, who’s allegedly concerned in anti-India actions.
Irani sought to know why is Rahul Gandhi “hobnobbing” with those that are funded by George Soros as it’s identified to everybody what Soros intends to do. While levelling the allegation, Irani additionally produced {a photograph} earlier than the media during which Rahul Gandhi will be seen sitting with Vishwanath.
Irani additional claimed that Rahul Gandhi’s journey to New York had been coordinated by Tanzeem Ansari, mission director of Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which has hyperlinks to the Jamaat-e-Islam – each hardline Islamist organisations.
“When it is clear to every Indian what George Soros intends to do, why is Rahul Gandhi hobnobbing with those who are funded by Soros? It is also evident that this is not the only Soros connection. Even in Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka, the Global Vice President of the Open Society Foundation, funded by George Soros, was found accompanying Rahul Gandhi,” Irani mentioned whereas addressing the press convention.
“What is extremely distressing is the link with the Islamic Circle of North America,” she mentioned, including that if one ran a public area search on the registration course of for NRI interplay with Rahul Gandhi in New York, s/he’ll discover the contact of Tazeem Ansari,” she added.
It could also be recalled that former Wayanad Congress MP Rahul Gandhi went on a 10-day go to to the USA from May 31 and took part in packages in three cities, San Francisco, Washington DC, and New York. However, his US journey was mired in controversy as a result of his anti-government statements and his assembly with controversial figures like Sunita Vishwanath and Tanzeem Ansari.
Irani’s scathing assault on Rahul Gandhi got here after an FIR was registered towards Amit Malviya, the top of the BJP’s IT division in Karnataka. The Karnataka police registered an FIR towards Malviya based mostly on a grievance from Ramesh Babu, a member of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee. The FIR accuses Malviya of selling enmity between teams and instigating folks by way of a video allegedly mocking Rahul Gandhi that he posted on social media.
“The Gandhi family once again proved the extent that they can go to suppress the truth even after they get the power in a state (Karnataka). But information available on public domain reveals that the meeting was convened by those with links with Jamaat and the meeting was with those with links with George Soros,” Irani mentioned.
So, Who Is Sunita Vishwanath?
Besides being a girls’s rights activist, Sunita Viswanath is the co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights – a US-based organisation. She has additionally been accused of being a “proxy” for George Soros within the backdrop of allegations that her NGO for Afghan girls obtained funds from the billionaire US investor.
Born in Chennai, she is claimed to have moved to the United States at an early age. In 2001, she co-founded the nonprofit humanitarian group Women for Afghan Women (WAW). In 2011, Sunita Viswanath co-founded Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus – a progressive Hindu motion aligned with social justice commitments to anti-casteism and anti-racism.
In 2015, she was honoured as a White House “Champion of Change” for her work with Sadhana. In 2019, she co-founded Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), a US-based advocacy group that goals to advertise non secular pluralism in North America and South Asia.
In May 2021, Viswanath was a named defendant in a defamation case filed by the Hindu American Foundation, which was dismissed in 2022. Though she was awarded the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Global Women’s Rights Award in 2011 for her work with WAW, she is not affiliated with it.
She holds a bachelor’s diploma in arithmetic from Douglass College, Rutgers University and a MA in sociology from SNDT Women’s University. Sunita Viswanath was first married to author Suketu Mehta however she later married Stephan Shaw.
