The Congress on Monday escalated attack on the Narendra Modi government over the Adani-Hindenburg row. The Grand Old Party posed three more questions to the government, calling its second edition of ‘Hum Adani Ke Hain Kaun’.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress said,“Pradhan Sevak won’t break his silence.” “The Congress will fight until the investments of the people in SBI and LIC are absolutely safe. As promised, Shri @Jairam_Ramesh confronts the BJP government with 3 more questions,” the Congress tweeted.
The opposition party alleged that the government has a “track record of bailing out failing disinvestments using LIC funds”.
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“It’s one thing to bail out public sector companies and quite another to use the savings of 30 crore loyal policy-holders to enrich your friends. How did LIC make such a heavy allocation to the risky Adani Group that even private fund managers had steered clear of? Is it not the duty of the government to ensure that vital public sector financial institutions are more conservative in their investments than their private sector counterparts? Or was this another case of your “Mann Ki Banking” to benefit your cronies?,” the Congress asked.
Raking up the previous fraud and money-laundering charges against the Adani group, the Congress said that “there have been many questions over who are the ultimate beneficial owners of major funds investing in the Adani Group.”
“There have been as many as four major fraud investigations including one by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) into the true ownership of its offshore investors. Given this knowledge, did anyone in the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Finance, Or the LIC itself raise any concerns about these questionable investments? Were such concerns overruled and, if so, by whom?” they said.
In the third question, the Congress said, “After the first selloff following the Hindenburg allegations, the value of Adani Group stocks held by LIC fell by 232,000 crore, bringing the value of those holdings to 256,142 crore on 27 January 2023 by LIC’s own admission. Since then several Adani infrastructure stocks have further crashed by another 50%. Will you share the true extent of LIC’s losses from its Adani investments after 24 January?”
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“The listed price of LIC itself has fallen by 14% in the last two weeks compared with a dip of 2% in the Nifty50 index. As LIC’s misguided Adani investments are eroding the confidence of its 34 lakh retail shareholders, what steps will you take to ease their concerns,” the party added.
Meanwhile, Congress leaders and workers on Monday morning took to the streets to stage nationwide protests in front of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) offices and State Bank of India (SBI) branches, demanding an ‘impartial investigation’ under the supervision of the Supreme Court or a joint parliamentary committee to probe the financial fraud allegations against the Adani Group. The Parliament session also saw ruckus and adjournment till 11 am on Tuesday following repeated disruptions by the opposition.