The Congress on Tuesday dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rajya Sabha to order a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the allegations made against the Adani Group by Hindenburg Research in its report.
Leading the Opposition charge, Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh said: “If the Prime Minister has the courage, let him announce a JPC probe.”
Digvijaya was participating in a debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, which provided Opposition MPs in the Rajya Sabha a chance to raise the Adani issue. Proceedings resumed in both Houses of Parliament in the afternoon after three-and-a-half days of disruption over the Opposition’s demand for a discussion on the Adani row.
All Opposition parties, barring the AAP and the Bharat Rashtra Samiti, decided to participate in the discussion and use it to raise the Hindenburg Research report. Digvijaya questioned the government’s refusal to even consider a JPC probe, pointing out that this is not the first time such a demand has been raised.
“JPC probes have been ordered seven times in the past,” he said, adding that two of them related to the Harshad Mehta stock market scam in 1992 and the Ketan Parekh share market scam in 2001. “What is wrong with our demand? The entire world is discussing the Hindenburg report,” he added.
This was echoed later by CPM’s John Brittas who wanted to know why the government was running away from a JPC probe. Trinamul Congress House leader Derek O’Brien began his speech with a quote from the President’s address: “The longfelt urge to be rid of the scourge of mega scams and corruption in government schemes is now being realised.”
He went on to ask if the government would use the draconian PMLA, “which they use very efficiently to hound the Opposition to put out lookout notices and even to topple governments”, in this case. O’Brien questioned the inaction of regulatory bodies like Sebi, reading out from the preamble of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, which lists its mandate as “to protect the interests of investors in securities; to promote the development of the securities market; and to regulate the securities market”.
In the Lok Sabha, Trinamul leader Kalyan Banerjee asked why the government was scared of ordering a probe. He said the Hindenburg report had levelled serious charges of money laundering by the Adani group and demanded that a high-level Supreme Court-monitored probe be ordered.
His party colleague, Mahua Moitra, claimed that “Mr A” had “topi pehnoed” (fooled) the country and different government departments. BSP MP Danish Ali said the government talked about “sabka saath, sabka vikas” but in reality it was only “Adani ka vikas”. He raised instances of the minority community being targeted and urged the government not to try and turn a large section of the population into “second-grade citizens” by “terrorising” them.
From the government’s side, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey sought to launch a counter-attack on Rahul Gandhi by recalling corruption cases during the Congress rule. Dubey claimed that Adani had been allotted mines in Australia in 2010 when the Congress was in power. Outside Parliament, BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad hit out at Rahul, saying he has made “baseless, shameless and reckless” allegations against Modi. The Congress and its leaders were involved in all big scams that tarnished the image of India, Prasad alleged.