Unlike the Left and the Congress ecosystem, driven primarily by ideological considerations and herd mentality, the Right has always prioritised rationality, factual accuracy, and evidence in forming informed opinions on matters of public importance.
Therefore, when a controversy erupted after Hindenburg Research published a report raising serious questions about the Adani Group, the initial reaction from right-wing users on Twitter had been divided, with one section demanding the Group to come clean on the allegations while the other highlighting how the conglomerate’s financials appear to have no obvious red flags.
It all started earlier this month after Hindenburg Research published a report accusing the Adani Group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud. Hinderburg, a short seller that relies on the trading strategy based on the expectation that the price of the security will fall, claimed that Gautam Adani, the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, has a net worth of approximately $120 billion, mainly due to an 819% average stock price growth in the group’s seven most significant publicly traded companies over the last three years. Predictably, the Adani share prices were pummelled in the days since the release of the report.
The grave allegations were contested promptly by the Adani Group, which trashed the Hindenburg Research report as a ‘malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations’. Days later, it released a 413-page rebuttal to the Hindenburg Research report.
Congress and Left ecosystem go in overdrive to attack Adani Group over allegations by Hindenburg
While social media users are discussing the merits of the allegations against the Adani Group, a political question has arisen, given the people at the forefront of the controversy.
The Congress party jumped on the bandwagon to attack the Adani Group and, by extension, the Modi government, given the party’s wild allegations against the Modi government of favouring a ‘few rich people’. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly been trotting out ‘Adani and Ambani’ jibes to attack the current dispensation even as Congress-ruled state governments have generously indulged the businessmen.
Veteran Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, who is facing allegations of having links with China, issued a statement over the controversy, co-opting Hinderburg Research’s report to attack the Modi government.
Similarly, Congress supporters, self-proclaimed neutral journalists, alleged ‘fact-checkers’, and leftist trolls too have jumped into the fray, using allegations against the Adani Group to train their guns against the central government and hoping that their far-fetched efforts to implicate the Modi regime would reward their preferred political parties with electoral rewards in the near future.
Right-wing divided over the Adani vs Hindenburg saga
However, as Congress and the Left ecosystem went into overdrive to attack the Adani Group without providing an objective analysis of the Hindenburg Research report, many belonging to the centre of right on the political spectrum raised questions over the motives of the short-seller, which led some to wonder why should right-wing supporters appear defending Adani.
Now that @Jairam_Ramesh has issued the statement, game is becoming clear. A party founded by a white British man and currently led by a white Italian is bound to crawl, when asked to bend by their masters. No wonder they are taking a traders report as a gospel! https://t.co/8aM62AzEOc
— Alok Bhatt (@alok_bhatt) January 27, 2023
But most voices on the ‘right’ have only questioned motives and raised red flags about the larger global left narrative that appears to undercut the rise of India and undermine the legitimacy of its democratically elected government. Those voices have not given a clean chit to the Adani Group and have merely shone the light on the agenda pushed by the global Left.
Ashutosh Muglikar, a Corporate Legal Consultant, weighed in on his opinion on the controversy. Muglikar said he does not give much credence to the Hindenburg report, adding that the investment research firm has relied on stale issues legally settled in the court to attack the Adani Group. The Twitter user also raised questions on the timing, alleging that it was specifically timed to extract a big pound of flesh and advised his followers to ignore the report.
Any business can fail. Literally any but I don’t give credence to Hindenburg report because
— Ashu (@muglikar_) January 30, 2023
1. Stale issues, already legally settled in India.
2. Hit and run. Shooter on scooter.
3. Profit motive n not independent verification.
4. Timing to extract large pound of flesh.
Ignore!
Another Twitter user highlighted how Hindenburg had indulged in similar activities in the past to make money.
Hindenburg had done this kind of things in the past to make money. https://t.co/xx1XblZD2z pic.twitter.com/p7AbLaHQCW
— That Marine Guy 🇮🇳 (@thatmarineguy21) January 30, 2023
By contrast, some people on Twitter, not necessarily belonging to the right wing, did not support the Adani Group and have asked people to stay away from defending the Business conglomerate.
Dear #ITCell members, @amitmalviya, RW Twitter:
— The Road to Serfdom (@quark_time) January 27, 2023
Pls have the intelligence to duck the #Adani bouncer. Pls, for heaven’s sake, do not get out there to defend the indefensible. Let it play out – do not hyphenate Modi with Adani. That’s exactly the opposition wants. https://t.co/3LFRjmMc6n
Yet another Twitter user said that just because a person relates with the right-wing ideology, he or she should not blindly support Adani and allow the conglomerate to come clean over the allegations.
Right Wing hona yaane jaruri nahi ki Adani ko blindly support kare. If questions are being asked, clear answers must be given.
— Amol Joshi (@SW6AJ) January 29, 2023
A Twitter user opined that Modi supporters should not blindly support Adani and let the investigative agencies do their job. If the companies are sound financially, the user argued, they will survive the turmoil.
I think BJP/Modi supporters should not blindly support Adani. Meteoric rise was always suspicious. If the companies are financially ok, they will survive. Stock prices might come down. That is good.
— samudra gupta (@dhanu_lagna) January 30, 2023
Then there were some independent users with no evident political inclination who raised the alarm over the implications of an ‘expose’ carried out by a foreign entity on a company involved in building infrastructure in India.
Without getting into the merits of the Hindenburg report, Lt Gen DS Hooda tweeted that the allegations touched off a dramatic drop in stock prices of a company dealing with critical infrastructure in India.
An example of what classic infowar will look like. Not going into merits of Hindenburg expose but a foreign report leads to an immediate drop in stocks of company dealing with infra in India. Need IW preparedness
— Lt Gen D S Hooda (@LtGenHooda) January 28, 2023
@PMOIndia @gautam_adani https://t.co/7MQN0CPeDF
However, others have felt that Adani was just a business group, which has faced investigations and had been fined back in India itself, the latest being only last year under the Modi government and hence, the right-wing voices should stay out of it.
It is difficult to pass judgment at the moment on who is right and who is wrong in this Adani vs Hinderburg saga. Unless competent authorities carry out rigorous scrutiny into the allegations by the investment research firm and examine the financials of the Adani Group companies, it is practically impossible to arrive at an informed decision. The right wing perhaps realises the nuances of the matter and has therefore been divided over the controversy. The Congress and the Left ecosystem, in their visceral hatred for Modi, are trying to drag the issue into the political realm and desperately hoping to use it to cause a dent in the electoral supremacy of the Modi government ahead of a busy election year and the all-important general elections in 2024.
