Has Rahul Gandhi got 'contract' of Hindenburg's closed shop, asks BJP

The BJP alleged on Thursday that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is in the "complete grip" of the thinking process of "urban naxals", and asked if he has now got the "contract" for the Hindenburg Research's closed "shop".

BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also slammed Gandhi for his comments that the Congress is "now fighting the BJP, the RSS and the Indian State itself", and asserted the Indian State represents the constitutional identity of India as a free country.

Prasad lauded the RSS as a nationalist organisation which, he said, has been working for society and for spreading patriotism, and asked Gandhi to reflect on where his party has reached and what the RSS and BJP have become.


Taking a swipe, Prasad said US-based short-selling firm Hinderburg Research "shut its shop" the day the Congress inaugurated its new headquarters building here.

"Has Rahul Gandhi now got the contract of this shop," he asked at a press conference here. "Rahul Gandhi is in complete grip of urban naxals' thinking process."

Prasad said it seems the "shop" of US-based billionaire investor George Soros is also going to close down with new administration under President-elect Donald Trump set to take over. Soros, he said, funds Hindenburg.

Hindenburg Research, which made international waves with campaigns targeting billionaire Gautam Adani that wiped billions from market value of the group companies, will disband, its founder Nate Anderson announced on Thursday.

The announcement by Anderson, 40, who started Hindenburg in 2017, came just days before Donald Trump's inauguration as the new President of the United States.

Prasad, a former law minister, said the Indian State also includes the President, Vice President, judiciary, state assemblies and the media.

Targetting the Aam Aadmi Party, he cited reported remarks of Delhi Chief Minister Atishi that she favours bringing back the scrapped controversial excise policy, which led to the charges of corruption against her party leaders and the arrest of some of them, including her predecessor Arvind Kejriwal.

Prasad said, "The blind attachment of the AAP politics to safeguard the interest of liquor mafia will be a black chapter of the Indian polity."

A party that emerged out of a movement advocating morality is now mired in liquor swamp, he said.

The AAP government "concealed" CAG reports that indicated a "scam" in the execution of the excise policy, he said, adding accused like Kejriwal and former deputy CM Manish Sisodia have been chargesheeted over the alleged irregularities.

Speaking at the inauguration of the new building of the Congress party's headquarters on Wednesday, Gandhi had said the BJP and the RSS have captured every single institution of our country.

He added, "We are now fighting the BJP, the RSS and the Indian State itself."

Hitting back, BJP president J P Nadda had alleged that everything the Congress leader does or says is in the direction of breaking India and dividing the society.