Adani row: Rahul launches blistering attack on Modi govt in Lok Sabha

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi-led government on the Adani issue.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi spoke in the Lok Sabha as the first speaker from the Opposition during Motion of Thanks on the President’s address.

The Congress leader posed direct questions to the Prime Minister, asking for details on his joint foreign trips with controversial billionaire Gautam Adani, instances when Adani joined the PM during a foreign visit, how many times Adani travelled to a country right after the PM’s visit and the number of countries where Adani received a contract immediately following the PM’s visit.

These questions aimed to shed light on the alleged close relationship between the Prime Minister and Gautam Adani.

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Rahul also asked how much money had Adani given directly to the BJP in the last 20 years. He wanted to know Adani’s contribution to the BJP in terms of electoral bonds.

“Harvard University and the rest of the world need to conduct a study on relationship between politics and business with India as a case study and PM Narendra Modi should be given a gold medal in this,” alleged Rahul.

He quoted the previous speaker, BJP’s Uday Pratap Singh, to describe the country’s progress under Modi, and said it best encapsulates the Modi-Adani nexus.\

“Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success”, said Rahul, quoting Pratap Singh.

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Through the entire course of his speech, Rahul stuck to the Adani-Modi link, listing a number of govt projects, policies, agreements with foreign countries such as Australia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc, that Adani Group has benefited from during the Modi years.

Rahul said this link between Modi and Adani goes back to the time when Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister. He alleged Adani was the man behind Modi’s Resurgent and Vibrant Gujarat initiatives and was being rewarded for his loyalty to the PM.

Rahul linked the massive rise in the business fortunes and personal wealth of businessman Gautam Adani to the Modi government coming to power in 2014, as he launched a sharp attack on the BJP dispensation over the Adani issue.

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His charges in Lok Sabha drew a sharp response from the Treasury benches, with Law Minister Kiren Rijiju asking him to not level “wild allegations” and furnish proof of his claims.

Speaker Om Birla also asked him to focus on the President’s address and disapproved of the Congress leader displaying a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Adani in the business tycoon’s plane to highlight their alleged proximity.

The Congress leader also questioned the Agniveer scheme for recruiting defence personnel claiming that youths aspiring to be in the army were not on the same page as the government on the scheme. Senior officers have said the scheme will weaken the army, he claimed.

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Rahul said he learnt a lot during his recently concluded Bharat Jodo Yatra and got the opportunity to listen to the inner voice of India. He said the highlights of what people told him during the Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir march were the issues of unemployment, price rise and farmers’ problems.

Adani’s name was also frequently heard from people across states as they wondered how he was successful in every business he entered, Rahul wondered.

The Adani Group is in the eye of a storm following the allegations of fraud and stock manipulation by a US-based short-selling firm. The company’s stocks have been hammered even though the group has rejected the charges.

(With agency inputs)