New Delhi, June 6 :
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the crash of stock market on June 4, day of election results, as he alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and two senior ministers advised people to buy shares saying “the market will shoot up on the day of counting”.
Addressing a press conference here, Gandhi said that it was for the first time in history that during election process, a Prime Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister commented on the stock market.
“In fact the PM had said 2, 3 and 4 times that stock market will go up so people should buy now,” the Congress leader stressed.
Union Home MinisterAmit Shah said that people should buy shares before June 4 as the stock market will sky-rocket after election results are declared.
Gandhi said that more than Rs 30 lakh crore were lost on the day of counting while it had experience mega jump after the exit polls. “BJP’s internal survey and the intelligence agencies had predicted 200-220 seats for the BJP and they knew about it,” he added.
“Who lost the money,” Gandhi said, and added that all retail investors lost thousands of crores as they had bought shares on the advise of Prime Minister and other senior ministers.
“This is the biggest scam in the history of stock market,” Gandhi alleged.
The former Congress president asked, “Why did the Prime Minister and Home Minister give specific investment advice to the 5 crore families investing in the stock markets? Is it their job to give investment advice to the people?
“Why repeat interviews were given to the same media house owned by the same business group, which is also under SEBI investigations for manipulating stock markets? What is the relationship between BJP and the media house?
“And what is the connection between the BJP, the fake exit pollsters, and the dubious foreign investors, who invested one day after the exit polls were announced and made huge profits, at the cost of 5 crore families?”
Stating this as a “criminal act” Rahul Gandhi demanded a JPC probe into the entire episode.
Gandhi later posted on X, “The Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the exit pollsters working for them and their friendly media have together conspired to commit the biggest ‘stock market scam’ in India.
“Rs 30 lakh crore of 5 crore small investor families have been lost. We demand a JPC be formed to investigate this ‘criminal act”.
The Congress has convened a meeting of its working committee on June 8 to discuss the Lok Sabha poll result.
Votes of the election were counted on June 4.
The meeting has been convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and he will chair it. Party leaders will discuss the outcome of the Lok Sabha election, sources said.
The meeting will be held at 11 am at the Congress headquarters on Saturday.
The Congress has emerged as the second largest party in the election and improved its tally to 99, from 52 in 2019 Lok Sabha poll.
It will be after a gap of 10 years that the Congress will have the Leader of Opposition’s position in the Lok Sabha, a post it failed to get as its tally was below the requisite 10 per cent of total seats in the House both in 2014 and 2019.
Top Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, besides others leaders would participate in the deliberations.
