Chandrababu Naidu cautiously commented on the US Justice Department's indictment of billionaire Gautam Adani in a $250 million Indian scam, mindful of Adani's ties to PM Modi and Congress criticism
Published Nov 23, 2024 | 12:06 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 23, 2024 | 12:06 PM
Naidu cautious on Adani's US Indictment, promises response after reviewing charge-sheet
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday, 22 November, appeared very circumspect in offering his opinion on the US Justice Department’s indictment of billionaire Gautam Adani in the US $250 million scam in India.
Naidu is heading the TDP-led NDA government inn Andhra Pradesh, and his calibrated approach was obvious as Adani is understood to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress already baying for Adani’s blood.
Speaking on Swarnandhra Pradesh 2047 vision document in the Assembly, the chief minister said: “We have the chargesheet filed with the US court against Adani. After going through the charge-sheet we will take a call on what we should do.”
He said the state government was studying the situation obtaining after the charge-sheet came out. “We need more information. As soon as we get it, we will react appropriately,” he said, pointing out that he would wait for more details to come out.
The chief minister said that after studying the charge carefully, a decision would be taken to build safeguards to prevent recurrence of what has happened in the state under the previous government. He said it has become embarrassing even to raise this subject as such actions had affected the brand image of the state.
In a 41-page document detailing the allegations, SEC has submitted to the US court a timeline of meetings between Adani and Indian government officials. SEC has alleged that in August 2021, Gautam Adani met personally with the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. The SEC claims that the meeting was about the fact that Andhra Pradesh had not entered into a Power Supply Agreement with SECI and the “incentives” needed to cause Andhra Pradesh to do so.
“At or in connection with that meeting, Gautam Adani paid or promised a bribe to Andhra Pradesh government officials to cause the relevant Andhra Pradesh government entities to enter into Power Supply Agreements with SECI for the purchase of 7,000 MW of power capacity,” the SEC complaint said.
The SEC – akin to India’s SEBI – in its complaint insisted that the bribe to Andhra Pradesh for this Power Supply Agreement was greater than that paid to the Odisha government officials “by orders of magnitude.” It simply means that the bribe allegedly paid to Andhra Pradesh government officials was larger since the agreement was larger too.
(Edited by Ananya Rao)
