The indictment of billionaire Gautam Adani by US prosecutors in a New York court has become a hot political issue in India. Taking a cue, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi launched an attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded Adani’s arrest and interrogation. US Department of Justice charged Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and few others for giving $265 million bribery to secure solar power supply contracts in India.
Separately, US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Gautam and Sagar Adani and fomer Azure director Cyril Cabanes with Freign Corruption Prevention Act (FCPA) violations. SEC accused them of raising money from US investors through bonds by giving “false and misleading statements” that they were not involved in bribery.
These development took place in the US on Wednesday night, and by early Thursday dawn, Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Rout, SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav, National Conference leader Dr Farooq Abdullah and others began launching attacks on Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi said, he was ready to give it in writing that Gautam Adani would not be arrested by Indian government because he alleged that Adani was “source of funding” for BJP.
In its statement, Adani Group dismissed bribery allegations as “baseless”. The Adani Group said, “As stated by the Department of Justice itself, charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proved guilty. All possible legal recourse will be sought…..The Adani Group has always upheld and is steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest standards of governance, transparency and regulatory compliace across all jurisdictions of its operations.”
There are two aspects, political and financial, to this Adani issue. For the last ten years, Rahul Gandhi has been using Gautam Adani as his tool to attack Narendra Modi. For him, Adani was the issue, and Modi continues to be the target (Adani Bahaana, Modi Nishaana). Rahul could not make his allegations stick. Even today, the FBI’s bribery charges do not mention any state government where BJP is in power.
According to FBI, Rs 2029 crore were promised as bribes to officials, following which Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh signed power sharing agreements with central public sector undertaking, SECI, between July 2021 and February 2022. Tamil Nadu is ruled by DMK, Odisha was then ruled by Biju Janata Dal, Chhattisgarh was ruled by Bhupesh Baghel’s Congress government and Andhra Pradesh was ruled by YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy. There was no “Modi connection” in any of these deals. Modi’s image is not going to be dented because of this indictment. But Indian stock exchanges were hit badly on Thursday.
This is part of a pattern. The indictment was done at a time when Adani Group was going to raise $600 million in the US bond market. The group had to withdraw itself from the US bond market, and Adani group shares were hit badly at the stock exchanges. Earlier, when the Hindenburg report came, Adani group was going to come with Rs 20,000 crore FPO. At that time too, Adani group shares were badly hit at the stock exchanges.
Are both these developments a coincidence (‘sanyog’)? When the Hindenburg report came, Parliament session was going to begin and the entire session was stalled due to continuous pandemonium.
This time too, the indictment came three days before Parliament session was to begin. On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi said, the opposition would launch attacks on the government inside the House. In other words, Parliament proceedings will be stalled. Is it also a coincidence (sanyog)? or, an experiment (prayog)?