The noisy row on the Adani Group stock rout continued in both the Houses of Parliament which were adjourned for the day on Friday amid an unrelenting Opposition demanding a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).
The Government held on to its stand as articulated by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi that the Opposition should allow Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor accused the Modi dispensation of “stalling” the Opposition’s demand for discussions on every issue which would embarrass it, while BJP MP Mahesh Jethmalani dismissed the Opposition’s allegation that investments by LIC in the Adani Group were made at the Government’s behest. Jethmalani, instead, said the SEBI and the RBI will look into it. “Let their reports come in,” he said.
Prior to the ruckus in Parliament, leading to the adjournment of both Houses for the second day, Opposition parties came together at a meeting convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to coordinated their strategy in Parliament and resolved to insist on a JPC probe or a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the issue.
The TMC, which wants only a Supreme Court-monitored investigation, was not part of the Opposition meeting.
A number of Opposition members, including Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge, DMK Rajya Sabha member Tiruchi Siva, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, BRS MP K Keshava Rao, Shiv Sena MP (Uddhav Thackeray faction) Priyanka Chaturvedi, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dr Syed Naseer Hussain, and CPI(M) MP Elamaram Kareem gave suspension of Business notice to their respective Houses to hold a discussion on the allegations levelled by US-based Hindenburg Research against Adani Group.
Soon after the Lok Sabha met for the day, Opposition members were on their feet shouting slogans and demanding a probe into the tanking of the Adani Group scrips and sought a probe into the business practices of the corporate giant.
Speaker Om Birla appealed to members to participate in the discussions during the Question Hour, which he termed as significant. He said the House will take up the Motion of Thanks to the president for her address at the beginning of the Budget Session.
Birla said as it was the first address to the joint sitting of the House by the country’s first tribal woman president, all members should participate in it.
He said he was ready to give the Opposition enough time to raise their issues if they give proper notice.
However, an unrelenting Opposition continued their protests and sloganeering, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings till 2 pm. The House resumed the proceedings only to be adjourned for the day with protesting members trooping into the Well of the House.
Scenes were not different in the Rajya Sabha, which was adjourned till 2.30 pm following uproar by the Opposition members demanding a discussion on the Adani issue. Soon after the House met for the day, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar rejected the 15 adjournment notices filed by members of various Opposition parties to discuss the Adani Group issue in the wake of allegations made against the conglomerate by a US-based short seller.
The chairman urged members of the Rajya Sabha to maintain order and allow the listed business of the House to be taken up. But unrelenting Opposition members raised uproar over the rejection of their adjournment notices.
Dhankhar told the protesting members that Parliament is the essence and the North Star of democracy. It is a place for discussion and deliberation and not a place of disturbance, he said.
“I have received 15 notices under Rule 267 from different members...I have gone through all the notices. I am unable to accede to them as these are not fulfilling the requirements of rule 267,” the chairman said, leading to uproar from opposition members.
He then adjourned the House till 2.30 pm, as Opposition members continued to cause uproar.
Adani Group stocks have taken a beating on the bourses after the US short-seller Hindenburg Research made allegations last week in its report, including fraudulent transactions and share price manipulation at the Gautam Adani-led Group, which has denied the charges. The market losses of the Adani Group have risen to nearly USD 103 billion (about Rs 8.5 lakh crore).
