News Brief
Augustine Jebakumar (screengrab)
A video of a Christian pastor Augustine Jebakumar criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Make In India scheme by bringing in references to the Adani Group's mining project in Australia, at what is believed to be a religious event, has gone viral, making people point out how such events are being used to spread propaganda against the PM.
In the video (likely to be from 2014), Jebakumar says that PM Modi facilitated the transfer of an Australian mine to the Adanis and gave them a loan of $1 billion at low interest rates to run operations.
Further, he asked whether this was Make in India or Make in Australia.
Reacting to the video, Twitter user Anbudan Baala, wrote, "Adani Group bought Carmichael coal mines in Queensland, from Linc for A$500 million in Aug 2010 (UPA rule). In 2014 Adani just bought out latter’s rights to future royalties for $145 million. In 2011 (UPA rule) Adani bought for $2 Billion AbbotPoint mine (pics)."
People have pointed out that this is not the first time that Christian pastors in the state have made anti-Modi and anti-BJP statements.
Jebakumar himself had earlier targeted Modi for not living with his wife. He had said that someone who does not live with his wife is not eligible to even lead a prayer and therefore he cannot be the leader of the country.
At an event in 2020 to protest against the Farm Laws, Bishop Ezra Sargunam said, “Can’t you live with your wife after marriage even for a week?! What merits do you have to rule this country? This fake man.. We will be facing difficulties like these until this Modi is removed. He doesn’t know any difficulties. Only if he had raised children would he know the difficulties! We don’t even know with whom he lived! We are now stuck with him. Let us all pray to destroy him.”
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