Rahul Gandhi has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah of criminal conduct by giving investment advice ahead of the Lok Sabha election results that led to retail investors incurring huge losses.
The Congress leader said his party was convinced that it was "the biggest scam in the history of Indian stock market" and wanted a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigation.
Indian stocks fell sharply on counting day (June 4) with the BSE Sensex losing 4,389 points and Nifty 50 ending at 21,884.50, lower by 1,379.40 or 5.93%, which was the steepest decline since the first COVID lockdown in March 2020.
During a press conference held at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday, Gandhi raised three questions:
"Why did the PM and HM give specific investment advice to the 5 crore families investing in the stock markets? Is it their job to give investment advice to the people?"
"Why both the interviews were given to the same media house owned by the same business group, which is also under SEBI investigations for manipulating stock markets?"
"What is the connection between the BJP and fake exit pollsters and the dubious foreign investors, who invested one day before the exit polls were announced and made a huge profit at the expense of Indian retail investors."
What did Modi and HM Amit Shah say
In separate interviews given to a business channel owned by the Adani Group, Modi and Shah made bold predictions about the stock market. Modi claimed that the market will be so high that the "programmers will get tired". He said the markets will benefit for a week after the results come on June 4.
Shah, meanwhile, made a more direct remark. "Buy stocks before June 4, it will shoot up," he said.
According to Gandhi, Modi and Shah conducted a criminal act by giving an indication to buy stocks.
The exit polls that were broadcast three days before counting day had predicted the BJP-led NDA would secure more than 350 seats in the 543-member lower house. Subsequently, the BSE Sensex jumped 2,777.58 points or 3.75 per cent to hit a record peak of 76,738.89 in early trade. The benchmark finally ended at 76,468.78, registering a sharp rally of 2,507.47 points. However, the market fell sharply during the counting of votes when it emerged that Modi's party might not be able to gain an absolute majority as it did in 2019. The NDA finished at 293 seats, above the needed majority of 272 while the opposition alliance, INDIA bloc, made significant gains to settle at 233.
