Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday slammed Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros for attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian business tycoon Gautam Adani, and said that the country will defeat his 'imperialistic design'. She said the designs to weaken Indian democracy will be met with the might of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Today, as a citizen I call upon every Indian and organisation, societal or political, to denounce the intention of this individual who seeks to demonise our democracy and who brings an onslaught to the economy of India so that he can personally gain," said Irani.
She called George Soros the man who broke the bank of England and said he wants to break the Indian democracy by declaring his ill-intent to intervene in democratic processes of India.
George Soros, 92, said in a speech on Thursday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be weakened as a politician due to the financial troubles Gautam Adani finds himself in. He was talking with reference to the Hindenburg report accusing the group of stock price manipulation. Thousands of crores of stock value of the Adani Group had been wiped out due to the accusations that were later denied by the tycoon.
Soros said PM Modi would have to answer questions from foreign investors and parliament as to the allegations of fraud. He also said that PM Modi had been silent on the allegations.
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Who is George Soros?
George Soros is a businessman and philanthropist. He had a net worth of $8.6 billion till March 2021. According to western media, he has donated $32 billion dollars to Open Society Foundations.
He was born in Hungary's Budapest. He survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1947. He did his Bsc from London School of Economics. He started his career in the 1950s. He took several jobs at banks in the UK and IS. He started his hedge fund in 1969. He launched his second hedge fund in 1970 at a seed value of $12 million. The value of the fund in 2011 was $25 billion.
He is called The Man Who Broke The Bank of England in 1992 because he short sold $10 billion worth of pounds that made him a profit of $1 billion. Short selling means buying a commodity for a lesser price and selling it at high prices.
Soros is progressive and liberal as far as his political ideology is concerned.
George Soros, a well-known Modi critic, said the Adani crisis will break what he called stranglehold of the Central government and push for institutional reforms. Soros made the remarks at the 2023 Munich Security Conference.
"Adani Enterprises tried to raise funds in the stock market, but he failed. Adani is accused of stock manipulation and his stock collapsed like a house of cards. Modi is silent on the subject, but he will have to answer questions from foreign investors and in parliament," the billionaire alleged.
Soros also attacked the Indian government for buying cheap Russian oil despite the Ukraine-Russia war.
