On Thursday, August 31, while 63 leaders of 28 parties who constitute the organisation with the moniker "Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance" (INDIA) prepared for their two-day meet in India's financial capital, Mumbai, the principal face of its largest constituent, Rahul Gandhi, enacted a soliloquy that went against the very spirit of the word "alliance". It belittled the word "inclusive" (as the other 27 parties were not involved in their media outreach). It belied the words "developmental" and "national" (it has the potential of crashing India's stock market, causing common investors to lose money; and stymie foreign investment, damaging national interest).
By the end of the day, when the conclave participants savoured a gala dinner hosted by Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, none of the other parties had endorsed the Congress agenda of baiting Narendra Modi on the allegation of promoting crony capitalism to benefit the Adani group.
Rahul Gandhi repeated his demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). During the past sessions of parliament, this demand found no takers among opposition parties. The Grand Old Man of the "INDIA" conglomerate, Sharad Pawar, even came on TV to distance himself from the suggestion while parliament was in session.
Rahul Gandhi relied on reports published in two London newspapers alleging that the Adani group was using unsavoury foreign funding and round tripping of funds to further its businesses. These reports were sourced from the findings of Organised Crime & Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is funded by billionaire George Soros, who has been labelled by a number of governments abroad as an "agent of chaos and disruption". This clearly was Rahul Gandhi's gift to India on the eve of the G20 summit.
Rahul Gandhi alleged that the Adani group, which is involved in defence manufacturing besides infrastructure and green energy, had "foreign links", including with "China". The two foreign nationals he named are Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli from the UAE and Chang Chung-Ling from Taiwan - both nations have legitimate business ties with India and none of them can be described as "Chinese". Rahul Gandhi perhaps thinks the Indian media is gullible, incapable of distinguishing between Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan.
The allegations Rahul Gandhi sought to level "de novo" have been probed and dismissed by India's democratically constituted institutions - Supreme Court, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Enforcement Directorate(ED), and the Department of Revenue Intelligence(DRI), since they first surfaced with the publication of the Hindenburg report on January 24 ( endorsed, cascaded by Soros in February).
While Rahul Gandhi shouts from rooftops in India and abroad about disrespect shown to India's institutions, the rejection of the Hindenburg allegations by these very institutions is disregarded by him. Recent reports have shown that as a result of Hindenburg, short-sellers benefitted while Indian stocks crashed. Eighteen entities are being probed by ED and tax authorities on this score as a result of the findings of the Supreme Court-appointed Justice AM Sapre panel and SEBI.
Indira Gandhi was perennially wary of a "Foreign Hand"; she feared that foreign entities in the West, chagrined by the success of the growth of democracy in India in spite of their persistent doomsday predictions, were out to destabilise the elected government of this land. Ironically, her grandson has chosen to outsource, or perhaps "out-Soros", his attack on Narendra Modi to questionable entities abroad.
Soros' credentials have been decried by Russia, Malaysia, South Korea, Indonesia and even European Union (EU). Malaysia's former president Mahathir Mohammed, who survived Soros' machinations, which triggered the 1997 South East Asian economic crisis, described him as a "moron". The then rulers of South Korea and Indonesia's Suharto were not fortunate as Mahathir -their regimes were ousted. Soros' hand was evident in the Arab Spring in the early 2010s.
Soros is also known as the man who "broke the Bank of England". His hedging earned him over a billion US Dollars while the British Pound went for a toss during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis. Though he has denied it, the Canadian organisation Adbusters, which was associated with the Wall Street demonstrations in the US in 2011, is suspected (per findings of Reuters) to be beneficiary of his "philanthropy". Ahead of the 2024 election, Rahul Gandhi's fondness for the man who destabilised, or tried to destabilise governments and economies tends to raise eyebrows.
While addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in 2020, George Soros spoke against rising nationalism, which he perceived as a threat. He mentioned three world leaders specifically: Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, and offered to fund a campaign against "growing nationalism" with a corpus of $ 1 billion to set up universities across the globe.
Having mentioned the political ramifications of the Rahul Gandhi allegations, and their rather questionable sourcing, let us analyse them one by one:
- Funds sent abroad by over-invoicing and the same money used to drive stock prices: The fact is that DRI issued showcause notice in 2014; upon investigation, DRI found that all the imports were genuine, were undertaken at an arm's length and concluded that the value declared was correct and therefore there was no over-invoicing.
- There was a breach of the minimum public shareholding requirement: The Supreme Court-appointed expert committee (Justice Sapre panel) examined the issue and found nothing of that sort happened. The committee did not find any violation of the requirement.
- There was price manipulation: The Sapre committee said that there is no evidence to conclude that there has been price manipulation.
So, the crux of the allegation, that Indian money went abroad, came back through offshore entities and led to unprecedented rise in share prices, does not hold water. These allegations have been rejected by the Supreme Court in recent days, as were Rahul Gandhi's allegations on the Rafael deal and the Pegasus spyware scam earlier.
As for Rahul Gandhi's favourite jab," crony capitalism", this terminology gained currency in 1980 (in the post Sanjay Gandhi era) when rules were bent to award a contract which favoured an Italian entity, represented over many decades in India by Ottavio Quattrocchi.
A report of the Estimates Committee of Parliament of the 7th Lok Sabha, which went into a deal of Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilisers Ltd ( known as Thal Vaishet deal), had an interesting statement by then Chemicals & Fertilisers Secretary KV Ramanathan. A distinguished bureaucrat, he was bypassed for promotion as Cabinet Secretary in 1985, perhaps because of this statement. The parliamentary panel report records that MPs enquired why there had been a cost escalation; Ramnathan replied that it was necessitated by a last minute change in the vendor. Questioned by MPs if the last minute change was due to superior technical advice, the Secretary replied, "No, sir. The change was necessitated due to what I may term as superior extra-technical considerations".
Thal Vaishet marked the rise of Quattrocchi. He quietly left the shores of India amid Bofors allegations in 1991. Attempts by the CBI to bring him before Indian courts failed. His death closed the chapter. Instances of cronyism and people wanted by the Indian courts disappearing to sanctuaries overseas has a history spanning over four decades.
In 2019, Rahul Gandhi's war cry "chowkidar chor hai" did not resonate with voters. During his impressive Bharat Jodo Yatra Rahul Gandhi said he was running a "Mohabbat ki dukan". His press interaction on Thursday, August 31, showed the wares displayed in his "dukaan" in somewhat poor light.
(Shubhabrata Bhattacharya is a retired Editor and a public affairs commentator)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author