'States Named In Adani Case Were Ruled By Oppn': BJP After Rahul Gandhi Targets PM Modi

Adani Row: The BJP on Thursday hit back at the Congress after the grand old party targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the indictment in the US where federal prosecutors have charged billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani with bribery and fraud, saying all the states mentioned in the document were ruled by opposition parties when the alleged bribes are said to have exchanged hands.

Referring to the indictment, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that the dispute is about the agreement on electricity purchase with the state distribution companies (SDCs) of four states, dated from July 2021- February 2022. He further noted that states where government officials were allegedly bribed by the Adani Group are Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu.

Patra stated, "SDCs are property of state government, among the four Indian states, one was Chhattisgarh, at that time it was ruled by Congress's Bhupesh Baghel, it is present in documents. Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of bribery.... These are all allegations. It wasn't BJP's or BJP's supported government. In Tamil Nadu, it was DMK's government, in Odisha, it was BJD's government. So, in all these 4 states, it wasn't BJP's or BJP's-supported government, rather it was Congress' and its allies' governments."

While the DMK is a Congress ally, the YSRCP, which was is power in Andhra Pradesh at the time, and the BJD aren't aligned with either the BJP-led NDA or the INDIA opposition bloc. Patra's statement came after senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asserted that a probe into Gautam Adani's alleged wrongdoings would inevitably lead the investigators to PM Modi.

The Adani Group has refuted the allegations made by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against directors of its subsidiary company Adani Green and has termed them "baseless".

(With inputs from agencies)