Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party said it had no reason to defend billionaire Gautam Adani on Tuesday after he was charged in the United States with alleged bribery to secure electricity deals in India.
The main opposition Congress party has accused Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party of protecting Adani and obstructing independent investigations into his dealings in the country, accusations the ruling party denies. Congress workers also held street protests demanding a parliamentary inquiry.
US prosecutors have charged Adani, founder of Ports to Energy Group, his nephew Sagar Adani and six others for their alleged roles in a $265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials to secure energy supply deals across five Indian regions.
The group denied these accusations, calling them “baseless” and adding that it would “seek all possible legal means.”
India’s federal investigative agencies and the markets regulator did not comment on the indictment or respond to it Reuters Inquiries.
“We have nothing to defend and we are not involved. Let him defend himself,” Gopal Krishna Agarwal, a BJP spokesman, said over the phone. “We are not against industrialists. We consider them partners in building the state. But the law will take its own course if they make a mistake.”
Agarwal’s comments came after Andhra Pradesh, which is governed by an alliance that includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, said it would explore whether a power supply contract tied to Adani Group in the state could be cancelled.
The sources said Reuters On Tuesday, Andhra State was likely to suspend the contract and ask the federal government to investigate the accusations.
The Adani Group and Andhra state government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
US authorities accused Gautam Adani and the other defendants of agreeing to pay bribes to unnamed Indian government officials to obtain solar energy supply contracts in the states of Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh, as well as the illegally occupied Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. IIOJK), between 2021 and 2022.
All the states identified by the US authorities at that time were governed by parties opposed to Modi’s ruling coalition. Those parties denied any wrongdoing, saying they did not deal with Adani but with a federal government agency.
The Adani group has business across Indian states ruled by various parties, and the BJP’s Agarwal said he expects that business to continue.
“They are in all states. The projects will continue, and they will continue to work,” he said.