Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during a press conference in Mumbai on August 31, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini
Stepping up its attack on the Narendra Modi government after the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigation revealed fresh charges against the Adani Group, the Congress on Thursday called it the “biggest scam in independent India”.
The OCCRP probe alleged that millions of dollars were invested in publicly traded Adani Group stocks through Mauritius-based ‘opaque’ investment funds managed by partners of the promoter family.
Also read: The financial jargon in the Adani-Hindenburg saga explained
The Adani Group, however, said the latest charges were “recycled allegations”. “These news reports appear to be yet another concerted bid by Soros-funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the meritless Hindenburg report,” the group said in a statement.
‘Will harm investments’
The revelations, Mr. Gandhi said, come at a time when India is getting ready to host the G-20 summit. Waving copies of the Financial Times and The Guardian, which published reports on the OCCRP probe, he said that these newspapers affect investments in India and world’s perception of the country. The charges have put India’s reputation on the line, he said.
“Over a billion dollars of money went from India. It was circulated in different places and then it came back to India. First question is, whose money is it? Is it Mr. Adani’s or someone else’s?” Mr. Gandhi asked. The newspaper reports have called out two foreign nationals Chang Chung-Ling and Nasser Ali Shabhan as the masterminds for the round tripping of the funds. “The second question that arises is, why are these two foreign nationals allowed to manipulate the valuation of the company that controls almost all of India’s infrastructure,” he added.
The Congress leader also raised doubts about the recent investigations by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), which he said gave a clean chit to the Adani group. “The person who conducted the investigations is now a director in one of the Adani firms,” Mr. Gandhi alleged.
Call for JPC
Underlining the headlines in Financial Times and The Guardian, which called the Adani group as close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Gandhi said that it is very important for PM Modi to clear his name. “At the very least a Joint Parliamentary Committee should be allowed. I can’t understand why the PM is not forcing an investigation, why is he quiet, why doesn’t he say that this issue will be investigated and the people responsible will be put behind bars,” he asked.
The fresh allegations by OCCRP — which is funded by George Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, among others — comes months after U.S.-based short seller Hindenburg Research accused the Adani group of engaging in accounting fraud, stock price manipulation, and the improper use of tax havens.
‘Money laundering racket’
Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal took to X (formely Twitter) to allege that “PM Modi’s best friend is running an international money laundering racket”.
“The Adani Mega Scam is the largest corruption scandal in Indian history. Since he assumed office, PM Modi’s single-point agenda has been to enrich his best friend. The Modi government and SEBI facilitated suspicious offshore individuals to take ordinary Indian shareholders for a ride,” Mr. Venugopal said. “Who are Chang Chung-Ling and Nasser Ali Shabhan, who ended up controlling 13% of Adani shares through offshore operations from Mauritius? Our question remains the same – whose ₹20,000 crore is being controlled through these shady operations?” he asked.
SEBI probe questioned
Making a strong pitch for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the allegations, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh also questioned SEBI’s investigation into the role of shell companies linked to the Adani group.
“Despite the Modi government’s best efforts, the truth will not stay suppressed forever. However, the full story about the flow of benami funds into the Adani Group — how foreign citizens came to play a role in critical national infrastructure and how PM Modi ‘violated rules, regulations and norms to enrich his close friends’ — can only be revealed by a JPC,” Mr. Ramesh said at a press conference at the Mumbai Congress office.
“Did the obvious conflict of interest revealed by the association of past SEBI chairpersons with the Adani Group play a role in SEBI’s inability to properly investigate these shell companies?” he asked.
‘Brazen violations’
In a post on X, Mr. Ramesh recalled Mr. Modi’s speech at the G-20 summit in Brisbane in November 2014 where the Prime Minister called for global cooperation “to eliminate safe havens for economic offenders and unconditionally extradite money launderers”.
“Today’s explosive revelations by The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the Financial Times and The Guardian about the clearly brazen violations of Indian securities laws by the Adani Group and its close associates are a reminder of how hollow these words have proven,” the Congress leader said. “They are a reminder of the lengths and depths to which the PM has gone to ‘protect his corrupt friends and their misdeeds’ by rendering India’s regulatory and investigative agencies toothless, reducing them to political tools to intimidate the Opposition rather than to investigate wrongdoing,” Mr. Ramesh added.
The Congress communications chief said that there is now fresh evidence linking Adani associates Nasser Ali Shabhan and Chang Chung-Ling to an effort to bypass Indian securities laws relating to minimum public shareholding that were put in place to prevent share price manipulation. “Shell companies controlled by Ali and Chang—that have been revealed to be fronts for Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod—accumulated substantial stakes in four Adani Group companies covertly and illegally,” he alleged.
Mr. Ramesh said that the actual ownership of two of the 13 benami shell companies that SEBI has failed to identify, despite years of “investigation”, has now been revealed. “Why did SEBI fail to disclose to the Supreme Court that the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had carried out investigations against the Adani Group in 2014, that were then closed by the Modi government in 2017?” Mr. Ramesh asked.
