Congress protests over Adani-Hindenburg row

JALANDHAR, FEBRUARY 6

In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, MLA Vikramjit Singh Chaudhary on Monday said the government had helped Adani Group perpetrate the largest con in corporate history.

The Phillaur MLA, while participating in a district-level protest organised by the urban and rural units of Jalandhar Congress, said because of the fraudulent practices of the Adani companies, the investors, both large and small, had lost trillions of rupees within a week. Despite such practices, he said, the Central government had gone out of its way to bend its rules to give monetary benefits to one man.

MLA Chaudhary stated that the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and public sector banks like State Bank of India (SBI) had played with the hard-earned savings of common people and pumped public money into questionable investments, causing losses of tens of thousands of crores of rupees.

He further said former Congress president Rahul Gandhi had been warning about crony capitalism and favouritism of the Modi government and its dangerous consequences since 2014 and his words about the bursting bubble had proven prescient now. Even after the Hindenburg research’s expose of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades” and subsequent sharp fall in the value of Adani shares, he said, Modi had stayed silent and had ordered no probe in the matter.

Reiterating the demand of the Congress, MLA Chaudhary said the allegations against the Adani Group be investigated under the supervision of the Chief Justice of India or by a specially formed Joint Parliamentary Committee. Jalandhar Congress (Rural) president Hardev Singh Laddi Sherowalia, Jalandhar Congress (Urban) president Rajinder Beri, MLA Sukhwinder Singh Kotli, former MLAs Sushil Rinku and Chaudhary Surinder Singh, Nakodar-incharge Dr Navjot Dahiya and Jalandhar Mahila Congress president Jasleen Sethi were among the speakers on the occasion.