In an interview to discuss both his and Rahul Gandhi’s reasons for suspecting that India may have witnessed its first exit poll stock market scam between May 31 and June 4, Praveen Chakravarty, chairman, All India Professionals’ Congress, gives details of the facts that are a cause for concern.
First, the buying and selling of shares on the National Stock Exchange on the 31st of May suddenly doubled compared to a day earlier i.e. 30th May. This he says is “very rare”.
Second, 58% of the stock market activity on 31st May was because of foreign investors. This is established by NSE data. But during the previous week they were not buying in such large proportions and, in fact, were “net sellers”.
Third, 24 hours later on 1st June the exit polls were published almost unanimously giving a huge majority to the BJP and in some cases up to 400 seats to the NDA. Thereafter the stock market boomed to a record high.
Chakravarty asks, is this chronology a coincidence or could there be more to it which we need to investigate and discover? As he puts it: “Surely, it cannot be a mere coincidence that an extremely rare event like doubling of stock market trading happened exactly one day before multiple exit polls unanimously projected an enormous victory for Modi.”
On the 3rd of June, after the exit polls, the stock market skyrocketed and so if foreign investors, who bought shares on the 31st, sold on the 3rd they would have made a very substantial profit. Does that explain their activity on the 31st of May? Is there any connection between the exit polls and foreign investors? Could foreign investors have commissioned their own polls? And who are these foreign investors? Were they acting for themselves or might they have been proxies for someone in India? Finally, is a JPC the best way of investigating this matter rather than leaving it to SEBI to do on its own?
