POTENTIAL FOR A FULL-BLOWN DOMESTIC SCANDAL
The echoes of the case will reverberate through India. So far it’s mostly Gandhi pounding the tables. For regional opposition leaders, Adani’s link with Modi hasn’t exactly been a hot-button issue.
That was also the case when in a fresh report in August, Hindenburg alleged that Madhabi Puri Buch, head of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), had a potential conflict of interest, raising doubts about the objectivity of SEBI’s ongoing probe into Adani.
Buch and the regulator denied the accusations, and the SEBI chief skipped a scheduled appearance before a lawmakers’ committee in October.
But the fresh US charges change everything. The indictment alleges that Adani has concealed the “bribery scheme” from investors and financial investors since at least March last year, when Federal Bureau of Investigation agents served Sagar with a search warrant in the US.
While concepts like conflicts of interest – or alleged breaches of securities law – require a modicum of financial training, bribery is something every politician understands. Almost US$228 million, the DOJ says, was offered to just one person, identified in the court filing as Foreign Official #1 from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
There’s plenty here for a full-blown domestic scandal. If this affair drags out, Modi’s own Bharatiya Janata Party may wonder how long it should support a prime minister who at 74 is unlikely to lead it to the 2029 election.
In other words, Gandhi’s intuition to stick to the alleged Modi-Adani nexus as a talking point in election campaigns may have been vindicated. In a press conference Thursday, the Congress Party leader called for Buch’s removal and Adani’s arrest.
While the DOJ indictment came too late to sway the vote in Maharashtra, it may yet cast a long shadow – both on India’s national politics, and relations with Washington next year.
