The Congress on Saturday alleged a disconnect between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rhetoric at past G20 meetings and his actions, trying to throw a spoiler on his efforts to use the grouping’s ongoing summit to refurbish his image.

“The G20 slogan is ‘One Earth One Family One Future’. However, the Prime Minister seems to actually believe in ‘One Man, One Government, One Business Group’,” Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said, flagging the government’s perceived patronage and protection of businessman Gautam Adani.

“It is worth recalling Modi’s many exhortations at previous G20 summits for the international community to crack down on corruption and money laundering. At the 2014 Brisbane G20 meeting, he called for global cooperation ‘to eliminate safe havens for economic offenders’, to ‘track down and unconditionally extradite money launderers’ and to ‘break down the web of complex international regulations and excessive banking secrecy that hide the corrupt and their deeds’,” Ramesh added.

“At the 2018 Buenos Aires G20 summit, he presented a nine-point agenda ‘for action against fugitive economic offences and asset recovery’. The Prime Minister’s brazenness would be laughable if his complicity in high-level corruption and economic offences were not so serious."

Ramesh said: “Modi has not simply facilitated the creation of Modi-made Monopolies (3M) for his close friends the Adanis in critical sectors like ports, airports, power and roads using all the tools at his disposal. He has systematically blocked all investigations into Adani’s wrongdoing by agencies as varied as Sebi, CBI, ED, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, ensuring that tax havens are safe for his close friends and that they continue to enjoy the protection of excessive banking secrecy and complex international regulations.”

Ramesh referred to the allegation that at least two opaque funds accused of round-tripping, money laundering and violating securities laws were connected to Adani, and said this was the most recent example of how government agencies had been enfeebled and made subservient to the corporate interests of Adani and Modi.

“No less a body than the Supreme Court’s expert committee noted in its damning report how Sebi had itself deleted the requirement for overseas funds to report their actual ownership, something that it belatedly tried to undo in June 2023 when it reintroduced reporting requirements, long after the Adani horse had bolted,” he said.

“The Prime Minister’s ‘nine-point agenda’ is equally laughable given the ease with which the BJP permitted economic offenders like Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Mehul ‘Bhai’ Choksi and Vijay Mallya to flee the country.”

Ramesh invoked the term “Potemkin village” to disparage the covering of slums and the beautification drive to showcase a shining Delhi to the G20 guests.

“The G20 is intended to be a productive gathering of the major world economies, aimed at dealing with global problems in a cooperative manner. President (Vladimir) Putin (of Russia) may have stayed away, but Prince Potemkin has been in full display with slums being either covered up or demolished, rendering thousands homeless,” Ramesh said.

“Stray animals have been cruelly rounded up and mistreated, only to burnish the PM’s image.”

Grigory Potemkin was a Russian military officer who fell in love with Empress Catherine the Great. He created fake villages, erecting painted facades, to create an image of happy people to impress Catherine. The phrase “Potemkin village” now refers to a façade designed to hide an ugly reality.

Rahul Gandhi, whose criticism of Modi’s politics during his interactions with politicians and the media in Europe has riled the BJP, expressed the same sentiment on X (formerly Twitter).

“The Government of India is hiding our poor people and animals. There is no need to hide India’s reality from our guests,” he posted.

While many poor families, now hidden from public glare, have expressed anguish and said they felt suffocated because of the curtaining and the restrictions on movement, visuals of street dogs being taken away have provoked allegations of cruelty from animal lovers.