Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra has asked finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to provide clarification about the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation’s investment in the Adani Group.
Moitra referred to a news report that revealed that the value of LIC’s investment in Adani companies had fallen below the purchase price by almost 11%, reaching less than ₹27,000 crore. This was the first time this had happened.
” ₹3,200 crore loss in Adani shares for LIC India so far, Nirmala Sitharaman… what pressure is there to support Adani at cost of Indian public? We need answers,” she tweeted on Friday.
The news report she shared said ‘the market value of state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) shareholding in Adani Group’s five big companies has, for the first time, dipped below its purchase value’.
The news report identified the five companies in question as Adani Enterprise, Total Adani Gas, Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission, and Adani Ports.
On 24 January 2023, Hindenburg Research disclosed a short position against Adani Group’s listed companies and published a report that accuses the Indian conglomerate of engaging in “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.”
The Adani Group issues a 413-page rebuttal against Hindenburg Research’s report and calls the short seller’s actions “a calculated attack on India, the independence, integrity and quality of Indian institutions, and the growth story and ambition of India.”
In its retort, Hindenburg accuses the Adani Group of draping itself in the Indian flag “while systematically looting the nation.”
The opposition parties have been demanding a joint parliamentary probe into its claims that both the LIC and the State Bank of India are overexposed to the Adani Group.
