New parliament, old woes: JPC on Adani clouds over monsoon session, stage set for opposition vs Centre face-off

Congress communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh said the opposition parties are "all united" in demanding a JPC probe into the Adani issue. “The coming session would be held in the new parliament building but the main issue would be old,” he said.

New Delhi:The stage is set for a fresh confrontation between the united opposition and the Modi government with the Congress on Thursday saying that the main demand in the coming monsoon session of Parliament will be Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Adani issue.

The Congress had led 19 like-minded parties during the previous budget session of parliament and was able to corner the government over the same issue. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had later attacked PM Narendra Modi over the issue but his speech was removed from the records of the Lok Sabha. The Congress later alleged that Rahul’s asking tough questions to the PM had led to his conviction and sentence to a two-year jail term by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case related to PM’s surname Modi.

The Congress had also alleged that the speed with which the judgement came on March 23 and Rahul’s subsequent disqualification from the Lok Sabha followed on March 24, showed the revenge politics of the BJP. “We are all united in demanding a JPC probe into the Adani issue. All the opposition parties will together raise this demand. In fact, it is no more about the Adani group, it has become the Modani issue. The PM has favoured his friend Gautam Adani and only a JPC can probe the links between PM Modi and the Adani group,” Congress communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh said.

“The coming session would be held in the new parliament building but the main issue would be old,” he said. According to Ramesh, the party has been flagging the alleged favours granted to the Adani group by the Modi government and had asked 100 questions under the “Hum Adani ke hain kaun” series. On Thursday, the party came out with a booklet listing the various instances where the Centre allegedly bent rules to favour the private businessman.

“We raised 100 questions over the issue since February but not a single one has been answered by the PM. We urge the PM to break his silence over the issue. Why are they afraid of appointing a JPC, where the BJP will have the maximum number of members,” said Ramesh.

According to AICC researcher Amitabh Dubey, “The questions have been categorised under various sections in the booklet like the Adani group’s relations with the foreign shell companies, pressuring the small investors for its FPO, links with foreign nations like Chang Chun Ling of China, the group getting a monopoly in airports, and benefiting in power generation, farm produce, and urban development projects through change of rules.”

“Further, the booklet mentions how the group made investments in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Israel, loss to public sector banks, losses to small investors, and how the government pressured the regulatory agencies to change rules and benefit the group,” he said. Ramesh referred to a recent Supreme Court-appointed expert panel report into the Adani issue which sort of gave a clean chit to the financial sector regulator SEBI.

“But now it has emerged that the SEBI wants to change a rule related to funding through foreign sources which favoured the Adani group. The SEBI diluted the rule in 2018 and deleted the same in 2019. But now wants to bring it back after the SC panel made a reference,” said Ramesh.

“The same rule had been in place over the past 10 years. Now the question is who was behind the dilution and deletion of the said rule. There was only one beneficiary of the rule removal, the Adani group. Now if SEBI wants to bring the rule back, the main concern is whether it will be done with a retrospective effect and will cover the foreign investments from 2018 or it will only apply to future investments. I think it should be done with retrospective effect,” he added.

According to Ramesh, the SEBI rule that was changed in 2018 allowed the regulator to find out the real investors who were putting in huge money in the Indian conglomerates to ensure fair play in the stock exchange.