Congress to organise public mobilisation campaigns on Adani issue, caste census

New Delhi, Aug 13 (PTI) The Congress announced on Tuesday that it will organise public mobilisation campaigns over its demands for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Adani issue, a caste census and adherence to the Constitution in letter and spirit, as it held a key meeting on its preparedness for the upcoming Assembly polls.

Amid a raging row over Hindenburg’s allegations, the opposition party also said it will hold a nationwide agitation on August 22 demanding SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch’s resignation and a JPC probe into the Adani issue.

The assertions came after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge held a meeting with all party general secretaries, state unit chiefs and AICC state in-charges here to discuss organisational matters and various issues of national importance for election preparedness.

Elections are due in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand later this year. Polls could also be held in Jammu and Kashmir this year.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, general secretaries Jairam Ramesh and K C Venugopal, among others, were part of the meeting at the AICC headquarters here.

The Congress also urged the BJP-led Centre to take all possible steps to ensure that targeted attacks on religious minorities and their places of worship in Bangladesh are stopped and make sure that they are enabled to lead a life of security, dignity and harmony.

A resolution passed at the meeting said the Congress demands a JPC probe into the Adani “mega scam in which the prime minister is fully involved and in which the financial market regulator has now been found to have been severely compromised”.

The demand for a nationwide caste census to be conducted by the Centre was also stressed at the meeting.

The Congress also called for full and genuine respect to the Constitution in letter and spirit, particularly its provisions on economic, social and political justice.

Over the next few weeks, the party will organise public mobilisation campaigns on these three issues across the country, the resolution said.

The meeting expressed its deepest distress at the devastating landslide tragedy in Kerala’s Wayanad and expressed its condolence.

It re-emphasised the demand made by Gandhi for declaring the landslides a national disaster, the resolution said.

“We have reiterated our demand for a JPC probe over the Adani mega scam issue. We have been demanding this for the last one year and the manner in which revelations have been made recently, the formation of a JPC becomes more important,” Ramesh said at a media briefing on the meeting.

In a post on X after the meeting, Kharge said, “The shocking revelations of nexus between SEBI and Adani need a thorough investigation. The money of small investors in the stock market can’t be jeopardised.”

“Modi government must immediately seek the resignation of SEBI chairperson and constitute a JPC in this regard,” he said.

The Congress chief said the pressing issues of unbridled unemployment and uncontrolled inflation and depletion of household savings are the party’s focus.

The poor and middle class have been “betrayed”, he alleged.

Kharge claimed that “the attack on the Constitution continues unabated”.

A caste census is a demand of the people of the country, he added.

“The Congress party would continue its fight in demanding legal guarantee of MSP for our farmers. The Agnipath scheme imposed on our patriotic youth must be scrapped,” Kharge said.

He said train derailments have become a norm as crores of passengers suffer.

Climate-related disasters and collapsing infrastructure are also causes for concern, the Congress chief said.

“We would design a national campaign around these issues and go to the people,” he added.

Briefing reporters, Venugopal said it was unanimously decided at the meeting that the Congress will hold a nationwide agitation on August 22, demanding the SEBI chief’s resignation and a JPC probe into the Adani issue.

US short seller Hindenburg Research alleged on August 10 that Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had stakes in obscure offshore funds used in the alleged Adani money-siphoning scandal.

The allegations have triggered a political slugfest, with the Congress and other INDIA bloc parties demanding her removal and a JPC probe while the BJP has accused the opposition of being part of a conspiracy to create financial instability and chaos in India.

Buch and her husband have dismissed the charges as baseless and alleged that Hindenburg Research is attacking capital markets regulator SEBI’s credibility and attempting a character assassination of its chief, instead of replying to a show-cause notice served to it for “violations in India”.

The SEBI has said the allegations against the Adani Group were “duly investigated” and its chairperson even “recused herself in matters involving potential conflicts of interest”.

The Adani Group has termed the allegations malicious and based on manipulation of select public information. The business group has said it has never had any commercial relationship with the SEBI chairperson or her husband.