New Delhi/IBNS: Days after fresh controversy over the Hindenburg Research report targeting the SEBI chief linking her to Adani Group, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday said the opposition Congress in its pathological hatred towards PM Modi is backing a group led by anti-India George Soros so that the Indian stock market crashes.

"We all know that George Soros, who constantly questions India's democracy and the Modi government, is one of the investors of Hindenburg," Prasad said in a press conference.

"But my question is to Congress. What do you want? In the course of hating Modi pathologically you have today developed a hatred against India itself," Prasad asked. He said it is suspicious how Congress is taking up a fictitious report to destabilize the Indian stock market.

"If India's stock market is unstable the small investors will be in danger. Does Congress want to go back to Nehru's time when we were begging for assistance or to the period of licence Raj?" he asked.

"Congress today is practising toolkit politics and chit (note) politics like students get in exams. Congress now wants the stock market to crash, wants to send the message that investment in India is not safe," he said.

He asked Congress how a party that had once helped India open up under Narasimha Rao government in early 90s is doing the reverse.

"But thankfully the people are not misled by their propaganda," he said, adding that Congress and its allies want economic anarchy and instability in India over allegations that have been trashed by India's Supreme Court already.

"India's economic system is doing great. India is a safe, stable and promising market according to all top bodies like World Bank and Moody's," he said.

Alleging conspiracy citing the timings of these allegations, Prasad said the Hindenburg report was released on Saturday and aggressively raised on Sunday so that the stock market can tank on Monday.

The fresh Hindenburg onslaught

Seventeen and a half months after U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research raised allegations of malfeasance and stock price manipulation involving the Adani group, the group again claimed that Madhabi Puri Buch, chairperson of India's stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), responsible for investigating these matters, had a stake in obscure offshore entities implicated in the ‘Adani money siphoning scandal’.

SEBI  Chairman Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch have firmly dismissed the latest report from Hindenburg Research, labelling it as "baseless allegations and insinuations."

The SEBI Chairman  described the report as an attempt at "character assassination" following SEBI's action against the short-seller.

The Adani Group has dismissed the latest report from the Hindenburg Research, calling it "recycled claims" that had previously been "proven baseless and dismissed by the Supreme Court." The ports-to-power conglomerate stated that the allegations were driven by personal gain, with no regard for facts or the law.

"For a discredited short-seller under the scanner for several violations of Indian securities laws, Hindenburg's allegations are no more than red herrings thrown by a desperate entity with total contempt for Indian laws," the Adani group said in an exchange filing.

What is Short Selling and who is Hindenburg Research?

According to Investopedia, short selling is a trading strategy where investors speculate on a stock's decline. A short seller (read Hindenburg) bets on, and profits from a drop in a security’s price. Traders use short selling as speculation, and investors or portfolio managers may use it as a hedge against the downside risk of a long position.

Founded by Nate Anderson, US-based Hindenburg Research LLC specializes in forensic financial research.

Wikipedia mentions Hindenburg as an investment research firm with a focus on activist short-selling. Named after the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, which they characterize as a human-made avoidable disaster, the firm generates public reports via its website that allege corporate fraud and malfeasance.

According to an explainer by Vox.com, Anderson, Hindenburg founder, is a short seller, meaning he stands to make money if the price of Adani Group company shares and bonds fall. He makes those prices fall with the report, it said.