The charge of crony capitalism has been a recurring facet of the Congress’ critique of the government for the last decade, so it shouldn’t surprise anybody that the names of Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani are once again in the news. But wait, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who brought them up this time. That can’t be right.
Surely he was talking about their massive investments in key physical and digital infrastructure projects, right? No, Modi was blaming Ambani-Adani for sending black money in tempos to the Congress. This sounds like an April Fool’s joke. Oh, it was on 8 May?
It used to be Tatas and Birlas in the loose political rhetoric of the 1970s and the 1980s. Today, it is Adani and Ambani in the heated Lok Sabha election campaign. More than three decades after economic reforms, liberalisation and industrial expansion, Indian politicians are still squeamish about celebrating the wealth-creators, still regarding them as easy whipping boys.
This is why the Adani-Ambani duo featuring in the 2024 election campaign is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Let’s first establish what the Prime Minister really said. Speaking at an election rally in Telangana, Modi questioned why Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had gone silent on Ambani and Adani, after regularly using their name, almost like a chant.
“You must have noticed that for the last five years, the Congress Shehzada [Rahul Gandhi] starts chanting the same thing from sunrise,” Modi said in Hindi. “Since his Rafale issue was grounded, he has started chanting a new slogan for the last five years — that there are five businessmen [purportedly the only ones gaining under the Modi government]. Then gradually, he moved to Ambani-Adani. But since the elections have been announced, he has stopped abusing Ambani-Adani.”
This, of course, was a vague enough statement that it allowed the Congress to jump in with a quick fact-check.
“Since April 3, 2024, @RahulGandhi has mentioned Adani 103 times and Ambani more than 30 times in his speeches,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
But it was the next part of the PM’s speech that really got people talking.
“Shehzada should declare how much money he has picked up from Ambani and Adani in this election,” Modi went on to say. “How many sacks of black money has he received? Has money reached Congress in tempos? What deal has been struck? Overnight, you have stopped abusing Ambani-Adani. There is definitely something fishy here. You will have to tell the nation.”
This is where the real questions began. Soon after the PM’s statement, Rahul Gandhi posted a video on X in which he exhorted the PM to take action based on what he had said.
भाजपा के भ्रष्टाचार के टेम्पो का ‘ड्राइवर’ और ‘खलासी’ कौन है, देश जानता है। pic.twitter.com/62N5IkhHWk
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 8, 2024
“For the first time, you (Modi) said Adani-Ambani,” Gandhi said. “And you also know that they send money in tempos. Is this your personal experience? Do one thing, send the CBI and ED to them and do a full enquiry. As soon as possible, don’t be scared.”
Modi’s ‘vulnerability’
Some Congress leaders took to social media to highlight what they said was Modi’s vulnerability.
“Times are changing. Friends are no longer friends,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge posted. “After completion of three phases of elections, today the Prime Minister has started attacking his own friends. This shows that Modi ji‘s chair is shaking. This is the real trend of the result.”
Others waded in supporting Gandhi’s call for a CBI or ED enquiry into the PM’s allegations.
“The Hon’ble Prime Minister had made a very serious allegation: that two prominent industrialists have tempo-filling quantities of cash and they were delivered to the Congress party,” P Chidambaram posted on X on Friday, while asserting that Gandhi’s demand for an enquiry was “absolutely justified”. “Coming from the Hon’ble Prime Minister, this allegation has to be viewed with utmost seriousness.”
Rahul Gandhi himself kept up the pressure, taking up the issue while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh.
“In 10 years, Narendra Modi never mentioned the names of Adani and Ambani,” he said in Kannauj on Friday. “He gave thousands of speeches in 10 years but he never took their names. When someone gets scared, he takes the names of people who, he thinks, can save them… That is why Narendra Modi took their names.”
Meanwhile, things got a little more official, with CPI Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam writing to the Prime Minister about his Adani-Ambani comments and urging him to direct the ED, CBI and Income Tax authorities to “thoroughly probe the wrongdoings by Adani and Ambani and unearth the hoards of black money from them, as you claimed is in their possession”.
On behalf of the CPI(M), Thomas Isaac took to X to say that PM Modi has “unwittingly” brought the issues of “cronyism, inequality and role of black money” back to the centre stage.
While the Congress’ supporters on social media took up the theme that this showed how rattled the PM was, a few popular handles looked a little deeper, and commented that bringing up Adani-Ambani was a calculated move in response to particular stimuli.
The stimulus in question? The January 2024 news that the Adani group has signed MoUs worth Rs 12,400 crore for investment in the Congress-ruled Telangana. Surely, the commentators said, this was a warning to the two big corporate houses to cease and desist. Invest, but invest in BJP-ruled states.
Some self-confessed BJP supporters too took to social media to express their disappointment over Modi’s speech, saying they “genuinely feel the quality of [the] Prime Minister’s election campaign needs to be better”.
Through all this, conspicuous by their absence and silence, the BJP’s online supporters made clear what they thought of the PM’s comments.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)