Powerful NGOs like Greenpeace, working in India, supported by their foreign arms, are planning to use the Mahan coal block issue to target the Government of India at international fora and make a case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claimed highly placed government sources. Mahan power plant in Madhya Pradesh's Singrauli, is owned by the London registered Essar Energy.

Officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs said that the thwarted visit to United Kingdom by Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai and five other activists of the Mahan Sangharsh Samiti (MSS) was the first step towards this agenda of portraying Indian government in a negative light.

Officials say that Pillai's boarding and lodging expenses in UK, including air travel expenses, were to be met by Greenpeace UK. Officials claim that Pillai was posted at Mahan by Greenpeace to create dissension amongst the villagers in order to prevent coal mining by the 1,200 MW Essar-Hindalco thermal power plant. They claim that this "rebellion" was funded through the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) route by Greenpeace's foreign donors.

According to highly placed government sources, who are monitoring the development, Pillai was scheduled to depose before the UK's All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on how the tribal population of India was allegedly being robbed of their rights by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government. This deposition, according to officials, was supposed to be widely circulated on social media to target the present political dispensation.

The recent reports prepared by the APPGs that have been set up by British Parliament, have adopted a "less favourable" attitude towards India. In its 2013 report on freedom of religion, it had clubbed India in the list of 15 countries which were "serious violators of freedom of religions and belief". The other countries in that list include Pakistan, China and Iraq among others. The report had also said, "The European Parliament in its relations with the Indian Lok Sabha should raise the issue of hate speech, in particular by certain Hindu groups and their representatives." Officials said that they had strong verifiable indications that the APPG report on the tribals would have used Pillai's testimony to rate India negatively, which would naturally create a negative image.

These reports are taken seriously not just by foreign investors but they also become important as various foreign governments, including the United States, use these reports to impose sanctions against countries that do not live up to the "standard".

Officials said that such documentations and reports have the potential to be used as a pretext for blocking India's increasing strength on the global platform. Such reports have been recently used against Iran, Russia and North Korea.

Officials are also concerned about UK's growing interference in Mahan. Apart from the involvement of Greenpeace UK, the officials have also talked about UK's Channel 4 journalists, who used a drone to shoot videos and pictures in Mahan. This was later seized by the Madhya Pradesh police. Channel 4 earlier also shot movies on Kashmir and recently in Sri Lanka, which later became an important factor behind United Nation resolutions against the island country.

"Almost all the Greenpeace activists who have visited India, for various purposes, including training activists for mass movements or to improve the cyber security of its office in Bangalore, are of UK nationality. One of the Greenpeace activists recently joined the British High Commission, while one is about to join the Commission," an official stated, thus pointing to the support of the UK government to Greenpeace.