From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday told reporters that Prime Minister Modi’s best effort will be to prevent any discussion on his businessman friend Adani in Paarliament.
“I am raising the issue for the last two, three years. I want separation of milk and water,” he said.
He said the government, or rather PM Modi, is frightened of any debate on Adani because it will expose how he had seized lakhs of crores of rupees and show how his companies captured the infrastructure of the government.
He said the Hindenburg report has exposed Adanis’ corruption while Modi is silent on the Adani loot.
3 QUESTIONS: Congress general secretary (communication) Jairam Ramesh said it is for the Prime Minister to explain “Hum Adani ke Hain Kaun.” He fired three questions for him to answer:
1. Your government has a track record of bailing out falling disinvestments such as IDBI Bank, New India Assurance and General Insurance Corporation using LIC funds. It is one thing to bail out public sector companies and quite another to use the savings of 30 crore loyal policyholders to enrich your friends. How did LIC make such a heavy allocation to the risky Adani Group that even private fund managers had steered clear off. Or, was this another case of your “Mann ki banking” to benefit your cronies?
2. Allegations of fraud and money launcering against the Adani group has been known for some time. There have been many questions over who are the ultimate beneficial owners of major funds investing in the Adani group. There are as many as four major faud investigations includine one by SEBI into the true ownership of its offshore investors.Did anyone in the PM’s office, Ministry of Finance or LIC itself raise any concerns about these questionable investments?
3. After the first sellout following the Hindenburg allegations, the value of Adani Group stocks held by LIC fell by Rs 32,000 crore, bringing the value of those holdings to Rs 56,142 crore on January 27 by LIC’s own admission. Since then several Adani infrastructure stocks have further crashed by another 50%. Will you share the true extend of LIC losses from its Adani investments after Jan 24? The listed price of LIC itself has fallen by 14% in the last two week compared with a dip of 2% in the Nifty50 index. As LIC’s misguided Adani investments are eroding the confidence of its 34 lakh retail shareholders, what steps will you take to ease their concerns?
