Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra hit out Friday at a national news broadcaster over an interview of Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar – in which he dismissed the opposition’s campaign for a parliamentary inquiry into the report by short-seller Hindenburg Research and backed embattled billionaire Gautam Adani – and declared Indian media organisations to be a ‘rare species’.
“Adani owned channel interviewing Adani’s friends to tell us how he is being targeted Long live Indian Media – you truly are a rare species!” Mahua Moitra – whose acerbic jabs at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party frequently make headlines – tweeted with a screenshot of the report.
The screenshot showed an ‘exclusive’ report by NDTV – which Adani bought out in December amid controversy over freedom of press – with the headline ‘Seems targeted’: Sharad Pawar to NDTV on US short-seller’s Adani report’.
The report quotes the veteran political leader – whose NCP is allied with the Congress and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena in Maharashtra – as questioning the opposition’s efforts to force the government to order an inquiry.
“Such statements were given by other individuals too earlier and there was a ruckus in Parliament for a few days but this time, out of proportion, importance was given to the issue… When they raise issues that cause a ruckus across the country, the cost is borne by the country’s economy, we cannot disregard these things. It seems this was targeted,” Sharad Pawar said in the interview.
The Bengal Lok Sabha MP has been relentless in her criticism of the BJP and prime minister Narendra Modi over the Adani-Hindenburg controversy; earlier this week she questioned the appointment of former Israeli ambassador Ron Malka as executive chairman of the Haifa Port Company, which is owned by a consortium of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd and Gadot Group.
READ | Mahua Moitra on ex-Israel envoy named Adani’s Haifa Port chairman
“… This man screamed from rooftops about how clean Adani’s Israeli dealings were… condemned filmmaker Nadav Lapid for criticising Bollywood Hindutva propaganda… ” the Trinamool lawmaker tweeted.
Malka was Israel’s India ambassador from 2018 to 2021 and the Haifa port is his country’s second largest in terms of shipping containers.
The Adani Group took it over in January at a ceremony attended by Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials.
Last week Mahua Moitra reacted to Adani Group share prices tumbling amid reports it hopes to renegotiate the terms of $4 billion in loans taken last year to buy cement firms ACC and Ambuja Cements.
The Adani Group later refuted reports first released by business publication the Economic Times, calling the claims ‘baseless speculation’.
READ | On ‘Adani shares tumble’ report, Mahua Moitra’s ‘don’t have cash’ dig
And two days before that she called out the union corporate affairs ministry over a statement (from July 2021) that said the government had identified over 2.38 lakh shell companies between 2018 and 2021. The jab was in reference to a tweet that flagged a finance ministry note shared in the Rajya Sabha that said data regarding offshore shell companies owned by Indians is ‘unavailable’.
READ | After ‘three wise monkeys’ tweet on Adani, Mahua Moitra’s fresh jab
Mahua Moitra has been at the forefront of opposition voices demanding a parliamentary inquiry into the Hindenburg report that alleges financial misconduct by the Adani Group, which has denied all such allegations.
