Thriving on opacity?

The lack of open governance at the Centre has helped Rahul Gandhi foster his image and create a powerful narrative where there existed none

- CP SURENDRAN

It is as if Rahul Gandhi is on steroids. And the BJP is supplying the stuff. After his all-guns blazing performance at the press conference last week at the AICC headquarters, there really is only one thing left to do for the Congress: the en masse resignation of the party’s MPs. There are only 51 anyway. The mileage from this should galvanise the party. There would always be the question if mass resignation would not subvert parliamentary practices. Well, the finance bill was passed without a debate.

At the press conference, Rahul Gandhi raised a few questions. He demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi supply the answers. The questions were related to Gautam Adani’s company transactions. I am not sure if the prime minister of a country would know the minute details of the transactions of a private firm. There is an SC panel investigating the alleged irregularities as we speak.

One of the questions raised was about the Rs 20,000 crore “round-tripping”. Gandhi would like the PM to account for how this amount was pumped into Adani’s “shell companies”. Well, if you believe the Hindenburg Report, it allows you to hazard a guess that the money may have come from Elara, an investment company with offices in London, New York, and Singapore. According to Google, Elara is a registered financial engineering and asset-management company. Gandhi’s point was that “this money can’t be his (Adani’s)”. Maybe. Maybe not. But how would the PM know whose money is circulating in whose account, even if the businessman concerned is a favourite of his?