Will keep raising Adani issue inside and outside Parliament: Mallikarjun Kharge

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said his party will keep raising the Adani issue inside and outside Parliament and added that if the government does not work democratically, people will get rid of it.

Addressing a press conference at the Congress headquarters here, Kharge posed a set of 10 questions to the government on various issues, including a controversy involving the business group headed by industrialist Gautam Adani and the expunging of certain remarks made by party leader Rahul Gandhi and him in Parliament.

Alleging that the Adani scam is a huge one involving public money, he wondered why is the government reluctant to order a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into it.

Kharge said he had not said anything unparliamentary in his speech in the Rajya Sabha and only asked certain questions on the Adani issue. Why is the Modi government not conducting a joint parliamentary committee probe into the allegations against the Adani Group? What is the reason behind (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji and his government not even allowing (anyone) to raise the word Adani in Parliament? he asked.

Modiji is now using our Parliament like a washing machine to wash the scams of his friend, Kharge later alleged in a tweet in Hindi. He said it is the opposition’s job to ask questions of the government.

The people of the country have elected parliamentarians and it is their responsibility to protect people’s money and rights and ask the government questions on the impact of scams on common people, he added.

We will keep asking questions of the government in parliamentary democracy. But the government does not want to allow Parliament to function democratically and is talking of autocracy. If the government is not ready to work democratically and talks of autocracy and dictatorship, people will get rid of it, the leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha said.

Is it a fact that France’s Total Gas has stopped its USD 50 billion investment in Adani’s company, pending the completion of an investigation against Adani? Has the world’s largest equity investor, Norway Sovereign Fund, sold all Adani shares worth USD 200 million? Has the MSCI downgraded the ranking of Adani’s companies? Have Standard Chartered, City Group, Credit Suisse stopped lending against Adani’s dollar bonds? Has Dow Jones removed Adani’s companies from the ‘Sustainability Indices’? he asked.

What is the reason that Modiji and his entire government do not allow even the utterance of the word Adani in Parliament? Kharge asked, adding that the country demands answers to these questions.