Mayawati: Hindenburg’s allegations against SEBI chief are now beyond the debate between ruling party and opposition

Lucknow: BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday said that the allegations by Hindenburg Research against the Sebi chairman have now gone beyond a debate between the ruling party and the opposition and are affecting the credibility of the Centre. She also said that it would have been better if the Centre had ordered a high-level probe into the matter by now. Hindenburg Research on August 10 alleged that Sebi chairman Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had stakes in obscure offshore funds used in the alleged Adani money siphoning scam. “The Hindenburg report relating first to the Adani Group and now to the Sebi chief is in the news again and allegations and counter-allegations continue to the extent that it is being termed as affecting national interest.

Despite clarifications given by Adani and Sebi, the issue is still hot,” Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said in a post on X. “By the way, this issue is now beyond debate between the ruling party and the opposition and is affecting the credibility and reliability of the Centre… It would have been better if the Centre had ordered a high-level probe i.e. JPC or judicial probe by now,” he said in Hindi. Hindenburg Research’s allegations against Buch have created a political stir. The Congress and other Bharatiya Janata Party parties have demanded Buch’s removal and a probe by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC), while the BJP has accused the opposition of being part of a conspiracy to create financial instability and chaos in India. The opposition parties have also urged the Supreme Court to intervene on the issue.

Buch and her husband rejected the allegations as baseless and alleged that Hindenburg Research was attacking the credibility of capital market regulator Sebi and attempting to assassinate the character of its chief instead of responding to a show-cause notice served to it for “violations in India”. SEBI said that the allegations against the Adani Group have been “appropriately investigated” and its chairperson has also “recused herself from time to time from any matter involving potential conflict of interest”. The Adani Group called the allegations malicious and based on selective manipulation of public information. The company said that it has no business relationship with the SEBI chairman or her husband.