Congress steps up attack on Centre over allegations against Adani group
New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday stepped up its attack on the Centre over allegations against the Adani group, alleging that the Modi government’s “loud silence” over the issue “smacks of collusion.”
Adani group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after US-based activist short-seller Hindenburg Research made a litany of allegations, including fraudulent transactions and share price manipulation at the Gautam Adani-led group. In a statement, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said that starting Sunday the Congress will pose three questions a day to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue.
He said that amid the allegations against the Adani Group, the Modi government has maintained a “loud silence which smacks of collusion”.
Ramesh said that in a response to the Panama Papers expose on April 4, 2016, the Ministry of Finance had announced that Modi had personally directed a multi-agency investigative group to monitor financial flows to and from offshore tax havens.
“Subsequently, at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China on 5 September 2016, you (Modi) stated: ‘We need to act to eliminate safe havens for economic offenders, track down and unconditionally extradite money launderers and break down the web of complex international regulations and excessive banking secrecy that hide the corrupt and their deeds’. This leads to some questions that you and your government cannot hide from saying ‘HAHK (Hum Adani Ke Hain Kaun)’,”
Posing questions, Ramesh said Vinod Adani, the brother of Gautam Adani, was named in the Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers as someone who operates offshore entities in the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands.
“He is alleged to have engaged in ‘brazen stock manipulation’ and ‘accounting fraud’ via ‘a vast labyrinth of offshore shell entities’. You have spoken often about your sincerity and ‘niyat’ (intention) in fighting corruption and even subjected the nation to the heavy costs of demonetisation,” Ramesh said.
