Two of India’s richest men have landed in an unlikely controversy over farming laws, becoming targets of protesters who allege the tycoons have benefited from their close links to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
For weeks, tens of thousands of farmers have camped outside the nation’s capital, demanding the withdrawal of recently passed legislation they say, without evidence, was designed to allow billionaires such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani to enter farming. The tycoons say they have no such interest. More than 1,500 phone towers of Ambani’s wireless carrier were vandalized last month and some farmers called for a boycott of their businesses.
The fight between the government and the farmers has revived the debate on what Modi’s critics call cozy nexus between the magnates and the popular leader — accusations they all have denied. The protests, one of Modi’s toughest political challenges yet, follow an eventful 2020 when the combined fortunes of Ambani and Adani swelled by almost $41 billion, even as millions of Indians lost their jobs to the pandemic that pummeled the $2.9 trillion economy.
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