Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has caused a commotion when he indicated that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who has consistently attacked the BJP-led NDA government as being pro-rich corporate houses, has “gone silent” on the country’s top business tycoons Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani and wondered if the opposition Congress has received election funds from them.

This was the first time the two business magnates found themselves dragged into the electioneering openly by the two top leaders on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Ambani, Asia’s richest man, is chairman of oil-to-media conglomerate Reliance Industries and Adani, Asia’s second richest person, heads Adani Group having stakes in a range of sectors from power to ports. Both of them hail from Gujarat, Modi’s home state.

 “You must have noticed that for the last five years, the Congress Shehzad (an epithet Modi frequently uses for Rahul Gandhi) starts chanting the same thing from sunrise.

Since his Rafale (fighter plane deal with France) issue was grounded, he has started chanting a new slogan for the last five years - that there are five businessmen (who are the only ones gaining from Modi's rule). Then gradually, he moved to Ambani-Adani. But since the elections have been announced, he has stopped abusing Ambani-Adani,” Modi said at an election rally in Telangana on Wednesday.

 “This means there is something fishy (daal mein kuch kala hai) that for five years they abused Adani-Ambani and it has stopped overnight,” Modi said adding “Shehzada should declare how much money he has picked up from Ambani and Adani in this election.

How many sacks of black money has he received? Has money reached Congress in tempos? What deal has been struck? Overnight, you have stopped abusing Ambani-Adani. There is definitely something fishy here. You will have to tell the nation.”

Rahul Gandhi has on several occasions for the last eight to nine years alleged that Ambani and Adani groups have benefitted from the Modi government while other business houses and the common people have suffered economically.

Congress leadership hit back at Modi’s Telangana rally remarks by saying that the two industrialists were the PM’s favourites and Rahul Gandhi challenged Modi to order a probe into his charge. But the party also felt it necessary to guard against any confusion Modi’s remarks were creating among voters. It made it a point to list the number of verbal attacks Gandhi had made on the two industrialists even as Congress social media handle put up a collage of video clippings of Rahul’s criticism of the two industrialists.

Before the Telangana rally, Modi had for long refrained from responding to Rahul’s tirade against him for the former’s pro-corporate tilt. But Wednesday was the first time he reacted by naming the two business billionaires to attack the opposition leader, causing quite a flutter.

The question being asked is: is Modi seeking to turn the tables on Rahul? It remains to be seen if either Modi or BJP will persist with its new Adani-Ambani strategy in attacking Congress and how it will roil the electioneering for the next four phases of voting. Three phases of the seven-phased polling are over and the next round is on May 13.

Bringing Modi directly in the line of fire for alleged corruption in the Rafael deal and proximity to super-rich business tycoons has been Rahul’s consistent strategy since 2015. In February 2023, Rahul had in a speech in the Lok Sabha shown a photo of Modi and Adani together and listed a slew of business deals the Adani conglomerate reportedly got since 2014.

Rahul’s strategy of personal attacks on Modi has proved counter-productive as Congress lost a series of state-level elections leading to the party’s decimation in the 2019 national poll. Rahul stuck to his allegation of graft in the Rafael deal even after the Supreme Court rejected pleas seeking a probe into it and said it was “satisfied that there was no occasion to doubt the process” in the deal.
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The writer is a veteran Indian journalist