New Delhi: Desperate ailments call for desperate remedies. Little wonder, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accused by the Opposition of often working for the top industrialists of the country, suddenly attempted to turn the story around by declaring that the Congress had struck a deal with Adani-Ambani and Rahul Gandhi had therefore stopped taking their name after “abusing them for 10 years”.
The Congress, apart from producing audio-visual evidence to expose the lie that Rahul Gandhi had stopped naming Adani-Ambani, unambiguously demolished the charge of any deal with them by declaring that a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) will be formed after the opposition combine INDIA comes to power in June 2024. Rahul Gandhi released a video message asking, “Modi ji, are you rattled? You usually talk about Adani-Ambani behind closed doors. For the first time, you talked about them publicly. You even know that they send money on tempos. Is that your personal experience? Why don’t you send ED-CBI to find out? And I repeat again, the amount of money you have given the select few industrialists, I will give it to the poor through our welfare schemes.”
The Congress leadership saw this ironic twist as Modi’s nervousness as he felt the need for overturning the main charge he faced and accorded credence by remaining silent all these years. Modi didn’t answer any of the over 100 questions asked by the Congress on his nexus with Adani, giving specific examples of misuse of power to award contracts and provide protection from investigative agencies.
Rahul Gandhi’s obsessive focus on Adani for years had deepened the public perception about the industrialist’s association with the prime minister. What vindicated Rahul Gandhi’s tirade was the passionate defence of Adani by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ecosystem in the aftermath of massive political outcry over the Hindenburg report. While in Parliament, the presiding officers expunged the references to Adani by Rahul Gandhi and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and the government stonewalled demands for a debate on the issue, outside a campaign was launched to project him as a patriotic businessman who was contributing to the nation-building process. Anybody who raised legitimate questions over Adani’s operations was branded anti-national by the Modi support system on social media.
Modi, who chose not to engage with Rahul on this issue publicly all these while, suddenly said at a public rally in Telangana, “Sathiyon, aapne dekha hoga ki Congress ke shehzade, pichhle panch saal se subah uthate hi mala japna shuru karte the, jabse unka Rafale wala mamala grounded ho gaya, tabse unhone nai mala japna shuru kiya. Paanch saal se ek hi maala japate the – panch udyogpati, panch udyogpati. Fir dheere-dheere kahne lage Ambani-Adani Ambani Adani. Paanch saal se… lekin jabse chunav ghoshit hua hai, inhone Ambani-Adani ko gali dena band kar diya. Main aaj Telangana ki dharti se puchhna chahta hun, jara ye shehzade ghoshit karen, ke chunav mein ye Ambani-Adani se kitna maal uthaya hai? Kale dhan ke kitne bore bhar ke rupaye maaren hain? Kya tempo bhar kar ke noten, Congress ke liye pahunchi hai kya? Kya sauda hua hai? Aapne raton-raat, Ambani-Adani… inko gaali dena band kyon kar diya. Zaroor daal mein kuchh kala hai. Paanch saal tak Ambani-Adani ko gaali dee, aur raton raat gaaliyan band ho gai. Matlab, koi na koi chori ka maal tempo bhar-bhar ke appne paya hai. Jawab dena padega desh ko.”
It translates as, “Friends, you might have seen that Congress’s scion has stopped repeating over the past five years, since the Rafale matter was grounded otherwise every morning he used to keep repeating it in the last five years. For five years he took to another chang – he kept saying the same thing ‘five industrialists, five industrialists’. Then slowly he started saying Ambani-Adani, Ambani-Adani. But ever since the election was declared, he has stopped abusing Ambani-Adani. I want to ask the Congress’s scion, right here from Telangana, how much money has he taken from Ambani-Adani? How much black money has he taken. Were tempos filled with money delivered to the Congress party? What’s the deal? Overnight you have stopped abusing Ambani-Adani. There’s something fishy for sure. For five years, you have abused Ambani-Adani and it stopped governing. That means for sure that some stolen money, you must have recieved laden in tempos. You will have to answer the nation.”
Modi, as usual, was wrong on facts. Even on Monday and Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi spoke about Adani while explaining how nation’s assets were transferred to a chosen few. The Congress released videos to prove that Rahul Gandhi took the name of Adani on May 2 in Karnataka, May 3 in Maharashtra, May 5 in Telangana, May 6 in Madhya Pradesh and May 7 in Jharkhand. The message posted with these video was: “Sawal toe hum puchhte rahenge – Modi ke Adani se kya rishta hai? (We will keep asking questions – What is Adani’s relation with Modi?) ”
The video of May 2 showed Rahul Gandhi as saying, “You have to decide – whether you want to form a government of Modi-Adani, or a government of farmers, the poor.” In the May 3 video, he had said, “Hindustan ka dhan lekar inhone 22 logo ke jeb mein dala. Adani, Ambani… in logon ke jeb mein (He has taken India’s wealth and filled the pockets of 22 individuals only. Adani, Ambani, the pockets of these people).”
On May 5, he said, “We gave MGNREGA, the media said we are making the poor lazy. When we waive farm loans, they say farmers are getting spoiled. Adani ko lakhon crore diya jata ha, wo nahin bigadata (Adani receives lakhs and crores, isn’t that big data).” In the May 6 video, Rahul Gandhi is heard as saying, “Sare aiports, ports, infrastructure, defence industry… sari ki saari inhone ek vyakti ko pakda dee (everything he has given to one person).”
Similarly, in the May 7 video he is seen as saying: “People like Adani have set theior sight on your Jal, Jungle, Zameenand these are Modi’s special friends.” If Rahul Gandhi regularly talked about Adani, even on May 6 and 7, what was Modi saying on May 8 that he has stopped naming them after the deal?
Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh responded promptly, saying, “The tide of this election has turned so violently that the ‘Pappa’ of ‘Hum Do Hamare Do’ is turning on his own children. The man who collected Rs 8,200 crore of Electoral Bonds for his party – a scam so egregious that even the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional – is today levelling allegations on others.
Also read: Narendra Modi Is Right, Adani-Ambani Should Be an Important Poll Issue
Remember that through his ‘Chaar Raaste,’ the Prime Minister has given contracts and licenses worth Rs 4 lakh crore to his cronies in return for their donations. If today, 21 Indian billionaires have as much wealth as 70 crore Indians, it is all thanks to the PM’s intentions and his policies. It also goes without saying that ‘Hamare Do’ are key figures in those 21. Since 28th January 2023, Congress has repeatedly demanded the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to investigate the Modani scam. We reiterated this demand even after the elections began – on April 23, 2024, and just five days ago, on May 3, 2024. Since April 3, 2024 Rahul Gandhi has mentioned Adani 103 times and Ambani more than 30 times in his speeches. A JPC will be formed as soon as the India alliance comes to power on June 4, 2024, to investigate the Modani Scam – which has an estimated price tag of at least Rs 2 lakh crore. Defeat is a foregone conclusion. The Prime Minister is now spooked even by his own shadow.”
Today, on May 8, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also took a dig at Modi, posting on X, “Time is changing. Dost dost na raha… After completion of three phases of polling, the Prime Minister has started attacking his friends. This shows Modi’s chair is shaky. This is the real trend of the results.”
वक्त बदल रहा है। दोस्त दोस्त ना रहा…!
तीन चरणों के चुनाव पूरे हो जाने के बाद आज प्रधानमंत्री जी अपने मित्रों पर ही हमलावर हो गए हैं।
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— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) May 8, 2024
Priyanka Gandhi also said in Raebareli on Wednesday, “Modi wrote off Rs 16 lakh crore for 22 industrialists. He handed over all the national assets to his friends — airports, ports, PSUs. Today he said Rahul is not taking the name of Adani-Ambani. Wonderful! Everyday Rahul is exposing the nexus, taking their name. He speaks the truth every day, tells you how Modi is aligned with billionaires.”
Modi’s Adani-Ambani rant bewildered political observers as well as politicians because, they said it almost sounded like a confession that they earned lots of unaccounted money in his regime, which can be supplied in tempos to political parties. He specifically referred to “black money” which went to the Congress “in bags” as part of the deal. Modi took office in 2014 with the promise of wiping out black money and at the fag end of his second tenure in 2024, he is saying that industrialists, considered friendly with him, are hiding black money. That itself has generated its own set of unflattering optics doing Modi’s ten-year record no good.
