Congress MP-elect Rahul Gandhi on Thursday slammed the Modi government for its stock market crash "scam" and demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the June 4 crash.
Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Rahul asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah gave "specific" investment advice to the citizens investing in the stock market.
"For the first time we noted that during the elections, the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and the Finance Minister commented on the stock market," the Congress' winning candidate from Wayanad and Raebareli Lok Sabha seat said.
He noted that PM Modi spoke about stock market rising at a great speed, Shah said that market will be on the rise on results day, June 4, and that people should invest. "Similar words were also said by the Finance Minister... Amit Shah buys shares before June 4, 19 May PM Modi says stock market will break records on June 4," Rahul added.
The senior Congress leader questioned why these leaders gave investment advice, asking, "Is it their job to give investment advice? Why were both interviews given to the same media owned by the same business group which is also under SEBI investigation for manipulating stock?"
Rahul asked what the connection was between the "BJP, the fake exit pollsters and the dubious foreign investors" who invested a day before the exit poll projections were rolled out, alleging that they ended up making massive profits at the cost of "five crore salaries".
Retail investors lost Rs 30 lakh crore, said Rahul, terming this to be the "biggest stock market scam".
"We demand a JPC into this. We are convinced that this is a scam. Somebody has made thousands of crores of rupees at the cost of Indian retail investors and the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister have given an indication to buy. So we demand today a joint parliamentary committee to investigate this," the Congress leader said.
Congress leaders KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and Supriya Shrinate were also present at the press conference with Rahul.
He said that the issue, though connected to the Adani matter, is a much broader issue. He said that the Prime Minister and the Home Minister were directly privy to the actual election results data and still advised retail investors to buy stock.
"This has never happened before. The Prime Minister has never commented on the stock market before," Rahul noted.
Rahul said that Modi knows what is going to happen because he has IB data and his own party's data as well.
The Indian stock markets crashed by over 6,000 points on Tuesday, June 4 -- the election results day -- after a sharp rally in the previous session. The crash was said to be the highest ever after the one during the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic.
The crash occurred even as early vote-counting trends showed Modi's BJP-NDA leading in more than 270 seats when markets opened.
While Sensex crashes 6,126.30 points to 70,342.48, Nifty tumbled 1,958.25 points to 21,305.65.
Notably, Nifty and Sensex recovered on Wednesday, after their worst day in over four years on June 4. BSE Sensex was trading over 1,400 points higher at 73,500 while Nifty topped 22,350 points.
The NDA managed to secure a narrow win with 293 seats, BJP's seats added with that of its allies. The BJP bagged 240 seats, falling short of the 272 majority mark. Meanwhile, Congress managed to increase its 2019 tally by securing 99 seats and its INDIA bloc won a stunning number of 232 seats.
