Eye On Goa’s Catholic Votes, Mamata Banerjee Outrages Over MHA Not Renewing FCRA Registration Of Mother Teresa’s Organisation

A tweet by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday (27 December) afternoon alleging that all bank accounts of the Mother Teresa-founded Missionaries of Charity had been frozen by the Union Government set off a social media storm.

The allegation was false, and Banerjee was guilty of misrepresentation of facts. But that's beside the point; and this wasn’t the first time she stands accused of this misdemeanour. Banerjee seems to have knowingly shared that news with an eye on Goa’s Catholic votes.

Catholics account for about 26 percent of Goa’s electorate and Mamata Banerjee is desperate to win their support in the forthcoming Assembly elections there. Trinamool has invested huge resources in Goa as part of its efforts to expand its footprints beyond Bengal in order to shed its ‘provincial party’ tag.

Banerjee’s electoral strategy for Goa is a replica of its game plan that worked so well for it in Bengal: get a majority of the minority votes and a minority of the majority votes to emerge the winner.

With this in mind, Banerjee has been focusing on wooing the minority Catholic population of Goa. She has been inducting Catholic politicians into her party and has made it a point to be seen surrounded with mostly Catholics during her trips to Goa.

Trinamool sources told Swarajya that the party is finalising plans to roll out a number of sops and schemes targeting the Catholics of that tiny coastal state.

The Trinamool’s game plan for Goa was revealed by former legislator Lavoo Mamledar who was one of the first politicians of that state to join Mamata Banerjee’s party. Mamledar, while resigning from the Trinamool last weekend, alleged that the party was trying to divide Goans along communal lines.

The Trinamool’s strategy, revealed Mamledar, is to use the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) to polarise Hindu votes while the Trinamool itself aims at getting a major chunk of Catholic votes.

The MGP, which announced its decision to ally with the Trinamool earlier this month, was popular among Hindus and ruled the state for many years after its liberation from the Portuguese. But even though that base has since shifted to the BJP, the MGP retains some degree of popularity among Hindus.

The Trinamool is trying its best to emerge as the champion of Catholics in Goa and wean away the community from the Congress. That explains the Trinamool’s attacks on the Congress, accusing that party of not putting up a tough fight against the BJP.

“By positioning itself as the most potent force against the BJP, the Trinamool is hoping to win the support of the Catholics in Goa just as it now enjoys unstinted support of Muslims in Bengal. The Trinamool aims to decimate the Congress in Goa so that it can get the Catholic vote,” said one of the leaders who exited the Trinamool along with Mamledar.

“The Trinamool’s strategy also involves backing the MGP, which has fallen on bad times, with huge resources so that it can put up a good fight against the BJP and divide the Hindu votes. Thus, if the Trinamool gets an overwhelming majority of the Catholic votes and the MGP manages to divide the Hindu votes, the MGP-Trinamool alliance stands a chance of winning a majority of the 40 Assembly seats,” he explained.

Mamledar alluded to this arrangement when he alleged Monday that the cash-strapped MGP has entered into an alliance with the Trinamool in exchange for huge sums of money. He, however, contended that the Trinamool’s electoral strategy--getting a majority of minority (community) votes and minority of majority (community) votes--will not work in Goa.

Monday’s outrage by Mamata Banerjee over a falsehood--that the bank accounts of the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) had been frozen--thus needs to be seen in the light of its electoral strategy for Goa.

There is no way that Banerjee, being a chief minister, could have been misinformed about the Union Government freezing the MoC’s bank accounts. Being the occupant of a responsible post, it should have been imperative on her part to crosscheck any information before outraging it publicly.

That she did not do so reveals a lot. More so since her outrage was followed almost immediately by condemnation from the Catholic Association of Bengal, a body with close ties to the Trinamool.

The Association’s president Angelina Jasnani, as if on Banerjee’s cue, issued this statement: “Mother Teresa did all she could for the poorest of the poor. Today a lifeline for those in need has been snapped as funds for all this work for the marginalised comes from generous individuals across the world. We see this curtailment of the FCRA funds as a harsh blow to their efforts”.

Mamata’s loyalist Derek O’Brien, who she has deployed to Goa to woo the Catholics there, retweeted her tweet. The vicar-general of Kolkata Archdiocese, Fr Dominic Gomes, also reacted strongly in support of the falsehood, though he retracted his statement later (apparently because he realised it was based on a lie).

Mamata Banerjee’s fake news was exposed when MoC superior general Sister M Prema revealed that the Union Government had not frozen any bank accounts of the order.

What had actually happened was that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had turned down MoC’s application for renewal of its FCRA (Foreign Contributions Regulation Act) registration “due to adverse inputs”.

The MHA statement read: “The application under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act for the renewal of FCRA registration of Missionaries of Charity (MoC) was refused on December 25, 2021, for not meeting the eligibility conditions under FCRA 2010 and Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules (FCRR) 2011. No request/revision application has been received from Missionaries of Charity for review of this refusal of renewal”.

Following this refusal by the MHA, the MoC had itself requested the State Bank of India--the bank through which all foreign contributions are routed--to freeze its accounts.

The MoC also issued a statement: “We would like to clarify that the FCRA registration of the Missionaries of Charity has been neither suspended nor cancelled. Further, there is no freeze ordered by the Ministry of Home Affairs on any of our bank accounts. We have been informed that our FCRA renewal application has not been approved. Therefore, as a measure to ensure that there is no lapse, we have asked our centres not to operate any of the FC accounts until the matter is resolved”.

But Banerjee’s spin doctors put another twist to the MoC’s statement by alleging that it was issued under pressure from the MHA (see this and this tweet). This itself was evidence enough that instead of standing down after spreading lies about the MoC’s bank accounts being frozen by the MHA, the Trinamool was intent on brazening it out only to woo Goa’s Catholic community by positioning itself as strong supporters of the MoC, itself a Catholic body.

What opponents of the MHA’s refusal to renew the MoC’s FCRA registration seem to be forgetting is that many organisations, including Hindu trusts and organisations affiliated to other religions, have also faced such refusals.

The FCRA rules were tightened a few years ago to curb inflow of foreign funds for purposes other than what they were meant for. The rules governing FCRA registration approvals and refusals are well laid down and have to be followed scrupulously by the MHA since arbitrary or prejudiced refusals can easily be challenged in courts.

But all this has been ignored by Mamata Banerjee and her colleagues in their bid to position themselves as champions of Catholics and, thus, get the support of that community in Goa. A classic case of politics triumphing over the truth.