Modi’s claims about Cong getting money from Adani, Ambani ‘poll propaganda’

Bengaluru, NT Bureau: The anti-corruption body Lokpal has disposed of a plea seeking an investigation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and industrialists Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani over an election campaign speech made by the PM in May.

While addressing a Lok Sabha poll rally in Telangana’s Karimnagar on May 8, Modi had asked whether the Congress was receiving money from Adani and Ambani.

The complainant accused Modi of “failing to inquire into the matter based on information gathered by him from the intelligence wing of the government”.

Under the Lokpal Act, the identity of the complainant cannot be disclosed. Calling the allegations against Modi “ex-facie fetched”, the Lokpal held that the remarks were “an expression of surmise and conjecture or hypothetical questionnaire”.

“The tenor of the speech borders on surmising and conjecturing; and is purely an election propaganda for cornering the opponent by posing a questionnaire to him based on assumed or so to say fictional facts,” said the Lokpal while dismissing the plea.