Hindenburg report | Swadeshi Jagran Manch backs Adani, says ‘those who participated in India’s growth story shouldn’t be targeted’

Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani. File
| Photo Credit: Rajeev Bhatt

Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), an RSS affiliate that promotes self-reliance, on Monday came forward in support of industrialist Gautam Adani in the wake of allegations by Hindenburg, a US-based investment research firm.

Ashwani Mahajan, co-convener of SJM, took to Twitter to extend the organisation’s support to the Adani Group and maintained that Mr. Adani wa⁩s not burning cash, but building assets. He added that reports like Hindenburg won’t affect broader sentiment towards India.

Also read: Fraud cannot be obfuscated by nationalism, Adani response ignores key questions, says Hindenburg

“The Hindenburg is in the business of defaming other companies in which they have a business interest in short-selling. Also, this is not the first time it is doing it,” he told The Hindu.

He said had this investigation been done by some independent company, it would still have some value. But in this case, this firm is directly gaining from such reports. Hence, it has to be discounted.

“Adani is producing solar panels. Adani is producing semi conductors. Adani has built all these airports. They are all real assets. So Adani’s model of business is not cash burning. Therefore saying that his firm is cash burning is wrong. I question how the assets being built will vanish? It will not,” added Mr. Mahajan.

Also read: Hindenburg Research report driven by an ulterior motive, says Adani Group

He further said the rise of Mr. Adani was a threat to China. “The gain of Adani is loss of China,” Mr. Mahajan said, adding that there were many people who had literally stolen India’s money and fled abroad. They should be called the real ‘culprits’.

Mr. Mahajan said those who participated in India’s growth story shouldn’t be targeted. Global investors had no option than to invest in India, he said and added that all other economies were contracting and facing huge crises.

In its report released last week, Hindenburg, a U.S.-based investment research firm that specialises in activist short-selling, has alleged that the Adani Group was “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”, a charge the conglomerate described as malicious, unsubstantiated, one-sided, and done with the malafide intention to ruin its share-sale.

The report further details a web of Adani-family controlled offshore shell entities in tax havens spanning the Caribbean and Mauritius to the United Arab Emirates, which it claims were used to facilitate corruption, money laundering and taxpayer theft, while siphoning off money from the group’s listed companies.