Madhav Das Nalapat, editorial director of The Sunday Guardian claimed that the ‘cabal’ loyal to the ‘first family’ in Congress was working on a ‘market meltdown’ in October. His article said that there was a systematic mechanism being worked out to engineer a crash in the market in October to tarnish the Modi government and influence the electoral results for next Lok Sabha polls.



Was the market behaviour around the budget period manipulated?

Mr Nalapat said that the market meltdown in pre-budget session was engineered by a former UPA minister and that the move had the capacity to make BJP voters in towns and cities switch sides if it were to be repeated. The report claims that the alleged market manipulation will be done by revelation of policy decisions from the former minister’s sources in the RBI and various ministries. This is an accusation of planned insider trading which is illegal. The writer cited one such plausible instance in his article.

Amazingly, the former minister is claiming credit for both the negative opening of the Singapore stock exchange on 2 February, as well as the unusual warning by Fitch rating agency that higher welfare spending in the budget just announced would impact India’s upgrade. Fitch’s comment was unexpected and the former minister has claimed to his associates that his “friends” in New York, London, Singapore and Dubai will ensure that Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, as well as Goldman Sachs will soon issue similar warnings on India.

Alleged planned market manipulations in October can impact elections

He went on to say that if such a market crash were to happen close to the election dates, it could affect votes in urban areas where BJP is strong.

Dr Nalapat accused the unnamed former UPA minister of having hatched a plan to manipulate markets by 1st October this year in his series of tweets. As per Dr Nalapat , those assisting him in this endeavor include professionals in 31 brokerages/ financial agencies and officials in various ministries who hope that the former minister might get the ‘highest job’ if NDA were to be voted out of power in 2019.



Cabal led by former minister has deep pockets and no fear

In the article, Dr Nalapat also cited sources that accused the former minister of making Rs 39,000 crores by market manipulations, while he was in power. The cabal , according the writer is not afraid of consequences of its dubious activities. He said the ‘cabal’ headed by the former minister had planted fake stories in the past as well. He cited the case where false reports of coup by Gen VK Singh were reported in media.



His report also says that the engineered meltdown may cost about Rs 3000 crore and the former minister is ready to invest Rs 500 crores of his own in the operation. Deep pockets will come into play to achieve this goal as per Dr Madhav Nalapat. He concludes his article by saying :

Should the former minister be given an assurance by his party that he will be pitchforked into high office after the polls, the BJP may be in for an electoral ride made impossibly rough by the newly formed “October Meltdown” cabal using its deep pockets to engineer a steep and steady fall in share prices during the period preceding the Lok Sabha elections.

The scale, reach and ability of Lutyens cabal led by former minister seem to be huge. Will Modi take note of this warning and act? We will have to wait and watch.