‘Is it PM’s job to advise people on investments’: Rahul Gandhi demands JPC for market crash on June 4 

Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said the equity market’s significant downturn on June 4 should be probed thoroughly. On Tuesday, the equity market experienced a significant downturn, erasing Rs 31 trillion of investor wealth. This decline followed emerging trends from the Lok Sabha election results indicating that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was substantially trailing behind the target it had initially set. 

Benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, which had dropped 8% during the intraday trade, trimmed their losses to 6 per cent.  At 3.30 pm on June 4, ​BSE Sensex​ tanked 4389.73 pts or 5.74% to close at 72,079.05, and ​Nifty 50​ ended at 21,884.50, lower by 1,379.40 or 5.93%. 

Calling it a scam, Gandhi on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were aware that there could be a downturn and hence asked investors to invest heavily before June 4. He sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the June 4 stock market crash.

“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,” Gandhi said on June 6.

He also questioned why top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, made comments about the stock market just days before the announcement of election results. 

Gandhi said: “The PM told the country three-four times that the stock market is going to skyrocket. Home Minister directly said that the stock market will skyrocket on June 4, people should buy. The same message was given by the Finance Minister.”

He added that the BJP leaders had a fair idea of the election outcome on June 4 and hence asked the investors to invest aggressively on June 3 just after the exit polls were out. 

“This is a broader issue than just the Adani issue. It is connected to the Adani issue, but this is a much broader issue. This is directly the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister, who is privy to data on actual election results, who has IB reports, who have their own data, who are advising retail investors to buy stock,” he said.

He added:  “Intel agencies had told that the government that they will get 200-220 seats. Stock market breaks all records on June 3, and on June 4, stock market goes underground.” 

Elaborating further, he asked: “Why did PM and HM give specific investment advice to the 5 crore families investing in the stock market? Is it their job to give investment advice? Second, why both interviews were given to the same media house, owned by the same business group, which is also under SEBI investigation for manipulating stock market? Third, what is the connection between the BJP, the fake exit pollsters and the dubious foreign investors.”

It is to be noted that PM Modi and HM Shah last month have interviews where both had predicted a robust market rally on June 4, coinciding with the announcement of the election results.

Shah had even urged investors to consider purchasing stocks before June 4, the election results day. He projected that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would win over 400 seats, expecting a stable Modi government at the Centre.

On May 23, PM Modi in an interview, said: “I can say with confidence that on June 4, as BJP hits record numbers, the stock market will also hit new record highs.”

He said: “Our government has undertaken maximum reforms and managed the economy with fiscal prudence. The trust the stock market places in us is evident in its remarkable performance over the past decade. When we took office, the Sensex was around 25,000 points. Today, it stands at around 75,000 points, reflecting a historic rise. Recently, we reached a whopping $5 trillion market cap for the first time ever.”