After the opposition slammed the government over allegations made by US short seller Hindenburg against SEBI chairperson Madhabi Buch and her husband, BJP leader Rajeev Chandrashekhar termed the report a “conspiracy” and a planned attack with the intention of destabilising India’s financial system. He said there was nothing “credible” in the report.
Chandrashekhar further alleged that Congress was seeking foreign help to destabilise the Indian financial system and create chaos in the country by attacking the independent regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
Speaking to ANI, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “There seems to be a pattern where Congress has been pursuing a strategy of politics of lies for the last decade and now it is seeking foreign help to destabilise our financial system and create chaos in the country by attacking the independent regulator SEBI and spreading slanders about the Chairman SEBI. This is a conspiracy and some forces are working together to destabilise India’s economy and discredit our regulator, stock markets and financial system. This is something we should never allow as our country is on the path of expansion and growth. Using these insinuations and lies against an independent regulator is a crime. Nothing in the report is credible. This is a conspiracy and a deliberate attack on India’s economy.”
The BJP leader also said that there is some plan behind such reports and said, “These are a series of insinuations and speculations, with a few grains of truth. There is some plan behind them. India’s financial system is the strongest in the world today. Even if banks and stock exchanges in the US collapse, Indian banks are strong. The Indian financial sector has been rebuilt by Prime Minister Modi over the last decade. Our economy is the fastest growing in the world.”
BJP leader and spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi suggested that the Congress party was behind the Hindenburg report and said that such foreign reports would be made public only when the Parliament session began.
Speaking to ANI, Sudhanshu Trivedi said, “In the past few years, a foreign report has been released at the beginning of every Parliament session. A BBC documentary has been released just before the Parliament session. The Hindenburg report came out in January just before the Parliament session. Sometimes there is a report on religious freedom or sometimes there is a report on farmers from abroad or sometimes Greta Thunberg’s testimony. All these processes take place during the Parliament session. Today, when the opposition comes up with such reports, there is a suspicion that the opposition has foreign connections to create instability and anarchy in India during every Parliament session.”
Criticising the Congress for begging foreign agencies to interfere in India’s internal affairs, Trivedi said, “We are talking seriously about this because the recent elections in India were just elections in which a foreigner, George Soros, said: I have invested a billion dollars just to bring down the Modi government. Whenever there is an incident, then a report comes from abroad. I cannot understand why Rahul Gandhi criticises such things only abroad. Congress and opposition leaders are begging foreign politicians to interfere in India’s internal affairs. They want to create economic chaos in India by creating confusion, whether it is a public or private enterprise.”
Trivedi added, “These are the same people who said a year ago that LIC, SBI and HAL are finished. But the fact is that in the last financial year, LIC made a profit of Rs 17,000 crore while that of SBI was Rs 21,000 crore, which is an all-time high. Now they are attacking SEBI.”
The BJP spokesperson further claimed that it is the Congress party that has always supported foreign companies, be it Union Carbide, Bofors or Augusta Westland.
“What do they want to achieve by making such allegations? Why has Congress always sided with foreign companies for 30-40 years? Why did they sided with Union Carbide? Why did they help Anderson of Union Carbide to flee India? I want to ask who sided with companies like Bofors, Augusta Westland, BBC and Hindenburg. Rahul Gandhi worked with a British company,” he said.
Questioning the opposition about their affection for foreign companies and reports, Trivedi said, “Today I want to ask the opposition what affection they have for foreign companies and reports. I want to ask, ‘Videsh ke sansthano se yeh konsa yaraana hai, ki Bharat ke har ek arthik sansthan ke Vishay ke upar aapka nishana hai?'”
A few hours after the US-based short seller made new allegations against the Adani Group, the conglomerate’s spokesperson said: “The latest allegations by Hindenburg Research are a malicious, insidious and manipulative selection of publicly available information to arrive at preconceived conclusions regarding ‘personal profiteering in wanton disregard of facts and law.'”
Shortly after US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged on August 10 that SEBI Chair Madhabi Buch and her husband had shares in “the two obscure offshore companies involved in the Adani fund diversion scandal,” the SEBI Chair and her husband issued a joint statement denying the allegations.
Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband accused Hindenburg Research, against which SEBI has initiated enforcement action, of character assassination.
In the joint statement to the media, they said, “Our lives and finances are an open book. All the required disclosures have been made to SEBI over the years. We have no qualms about disclosing all financial documents, including those from the time when we were private individuals, to any authority that requests them. It is unfortunate that Hindenburg Research, against which SEBI has initiated enforcement proceedings and issued a notice of appeal, has attempted to commit character assassination in response.”
Earlier, US short seller Hindenburg had claimed on Saturday: “We had previously noted Adani’s full confidence in continuing operations without the risk of serious regulatory intervention and suspected that this could be explained by Adani’s relationship with SEBI Chairman Madhabi Buch.”
“What we did not realize was that the current SEBI chair and her husband Dhaval Buch had hidden shares in exactly the same obscure offshore funds in Bermuda and Mauritius, which were in the same complex, nested structure that Vinod Adani used,” the US hedge firm’s report said.
Hindenburg Research said the new allegations were based on documents provided by a whistleblower and investigations by other agencies.
In January 2023, Hindenburg published a report accusing the Adani Group of financial irregularities, which led to a significant decline in the company’s share price. The group had denied these allegations at the time.
The Hindenburg report accused the conglomerate of stock manipulation and fraud. The case is linked to allegations (part of a report by Hindenburg Research) that Adani inflated its share prices. Following the publication of these allegations, there was a sharp decline in the shares of various companies in the Adani group.
In January 2024, the Supreme Court refused to transfer the investigation into allegations of share price manipulation by the Adani Group to an SIT and directed the markets regulator SEBI to complete its investigation into two pending cases within three months.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court also rejected a petition for review of the judgment in which the market regulator SEBI had requested an investigation into the Adani-Hindenburg case.
BJP reacts to Hinderburg allegations
