Rahul Gandhi Accuses Narendra Modi of National Sell-Out Amid Gautam Adani Bribery Scandal and US Trade Deal Controversy

• 🚀 Rahul Gandhi alleges that Narendra Modi has “sold the country” and compromised national interests through a secretive U.S. trade deal under external pressure.
• ⚖️ The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission successfully served Gautam Adani on January 30, 2026, with a civil fraud lawsuit involving a massive bribery scheme and misleading investors during a 2021 debt offering.
• 🚫 Parliamentary proceedings remain paralyzed as the executive employs procedural maneuvers to disallow Rahul Gandhi from discussing General M.M. Naravane’s memoir and the “Epstein Files.”
• 🌫️ The “Smokescreen 2026” research warns that the opposition’s reliance on “tweets over streets” sustains an illusion of democracy while Narendra Modi’s power structure remains electorally unshaken.

By Rakesh Raman
New Delhi | February 24, 2026

1. The “Compromised” Prime Minister: Rahul Gandhi’s Trade Deal Allegations

The February 2026 parliamentary session in New Delhi has devolved into a theater of institutional friction, where the calculated deployment of parliamentary procedure is being used to insulate the executive from critical scrutiny. During the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi launched a frontal assault on the sovereign integrity of the administration, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of presiding over a “national sell-out.”

The crux of the allegation involves a secretive U.S. trade agreement which Gandhi asserts was signed under external duress, transforming a policy debate into a referendum on the Prime Minister’s personal independence.

Rahul Gandhi’s rhetoric characterizes Narendra Modi as “rattled” and functionally “compromised.” The opposition leader argues that by yielding to external pressures, the Prime Minister has effectively “sold the country,” leading to the surrender of national data, the systematic ruin of the Indian textile industry, and the abandonment of the farming community.

By framing the trade deal as an act of capitulation, Gandhi attempts to dismantle the carefully manufactured image of Modi as an uncompromising nationalist. This narrative shift suggests that the Prime Minister’s policy decisions are no longer driven by domestic interest but by the necessity of managing his own legal and political vulnerabilities. These policy-based accusations, however, are merely the surface of a deeper crisis involving the financial architecture that sustains the ruling party.

2. The Adani-Modi Nexus: SEC Lawsuits and Global Bribery Charges

The strategic weight of this controversy shifted from domestic political theater to international legal reality on January 30, 2026, when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) successfully served Gautam Adani with a civil fraud lawsuit. This intervention provides a forensic backbone to the opposition’s long-standing claims regarding the “Adani-Modi nexus,” moving the discourse from the floor of the Lok Sabha into the rigorous environment of U.S. federal filings.

The SEC alleges that Adani—frequently described as a close “oligarch partner” of Narendra Modi—orchestrated a massive bribery scheme involving hundreds of millions of dollars paid to Indian government officials to secure lucrative solar power contracts for Adani Green Energy.

Crucially, the SEC filing reveals that the Adani Group misled U.S. investors during a significant debt offering in 2021, concealing the existence of this corruption. Rahul Gandhi has been quick to point out that the 14-month lack of domestic action by Indian regulatory bodies like SEBI or the Enforcement Directorate (ED) highlights a systemic institutional failure designed to protect the “financial architecture” of the BJP.

Gandhi asserts that the case against Adani is “actually a case on Modi ji,” claiming the Prime Minister is suffering “sleepless nights” because the U.S. legal discovery process threatens to expose the hidden mechanics of his political funding. This external legal pressure is now the primary catalyst for the suppression seen within India’s own legislative chambers.

3. Parliamentary Paralysis and the Suppression of Military Memoirs

Inside the Lok Sabha, the friction between the government and the opposition has resulted in total procedural paralysis, with the Chair aggressively ruling against any attempt to bring military or external influence into the formal record. The standoff reached a breaking point when Rahul Gandhi was blocked from referencing former Army Chief General M.M. Naravane’s memoir, particularly sections concerning the China border issue. The Chair’s intervention to silence these references illustrates a tactical use of procedure to shield the government from high-level military scrutiny.

The suppression extended to Gandhi’s mentions of the “Epstein Files,” where he utilized visceral language to attack the Prime Minister’s associations. Gandhi labeled it a “shame” to have the Prime Minister’s name connected to such a “disgusting criminal,” alleging that unreleased material from these files has increased the external leverage held over the Prime Minister. By dismissing these topics as speculative or procedurally invalid, the government reinforces the opposition’s claim of “institutional capture.” However, this high-drama disruption within the halls of Parliament may be a mere diversion from a more profound political void.

4. The Smokescreen Thesis: Performance vs. Street Mobilization

The “Smokescreen 2026” research project provides a sobering analysis of this political stalemate, arguing that Gandhi’s cycle of “episodic outrage” may actually serve the interests of the Prime Minister. The report defines the current environment as one where electoral opacity, narrative control, and institutional capture sustain an “illusion of democracy” while the actual mechanics of power remain unchallenged.

A central critique is directed at the “strategic void” in Rahul Gandhi’s leadership; despite his explosive rhetoric against Modi, Adani, and even Anil Ambani, he has failed to translate digital outrage into a sustained, street-level movement for structural reforms.

The Smokescreen report highlights Gandhi’s refusal to lead a nationwide movement for the return to paper ballots over Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)—a core demand of civil society—as evidence of a performative strategy. By focusing on “tweets over streets,” Gandhi allows Narendra Modi to project resilience while the opposition remains “trapped in a cocoon.” Without mass civil resistance to challenge the electoral process itself, the entrenched power structure remains electorally unshaken, regardless of how many corruption scandals are documented by foreign regulators.

5. Institutional Obstacles and the High Cost of Dissent

The reluctance of the opposition to engage in full-scale mobilization is often attributed to the severe legal and physical environment in which they operate. Rahul Gandhi’s strategic “hibernation” is framed by critics as a byproduct of personal fear. Both he and Sonia Gandhi remain entangled in the National Herald money laundering case, a legal leverage point that analysts suggest keeps the Congress leadership hesitant.

Furthermore, the “Smokescreen” research notes a chilling effect caused by the “mysterious circumstances” surrounding other opponents of the regime, citing sudden health failures, plane crashes, and uninvestigated murders as factors that complicate the ability to mount an effective challenge.

Ultimately, a stark contrast exists between Rahul Gandhi’s “Babbar Lions” rhetoric and his political reality. While he vows that the Congress Party will “not step back an inch,” his critics argue he remains “cocooned in a luxurious home,” provoking workers to protest while he avoids the risks of physical mobilization.

This disconnect leaves the country at the mercy of the Adani-Modi architecture. The Smokescreen research concludes that without a fundamental shift from symbolic soundbites to actual physical resistance against institutional capture, the erosion of democratic accountability in India will continue unabated, leaving the nation’s sovereignty and its democratic institutions in a state of terminal decline.