Delhi:In his latest swipe aimed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi shared a video featuring himself wherein he explains in detail how Adani has garnered deals in foreign lands immediately after the Prime Minister visit those places. In his tweet, he christened the duo as 'Modani' to denote the partnership between Narendra Modi and Gautam Adani. He has alleged that the duo has turned India's foreign policy into a foreign 'deal' policy.
In the explainer, Rahul says that Modi has kept the country in the dark while embarking on foreign trips with Adani to further his business expansion in the world. Rahul also questioned Modi on how many foreign trips was he accompanied by the business magnate and how many countries did the tycoon visit and sign business deals after Modi concluded his official trip to those specific countries.
Quoting a media report Rahul said that in 2013, a delegation from Australia led by the Deputy Premier met Modi in Gujarat in the presence of Adani. Following this, in May 2014, Adani acquired a 15.5 million dollar coal and railway project in Australia. In November 2014, Adani visited Australia when Modi was attending the G20 Summit in Australia. On the trip, Adani and then State Bank of India Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya signed an MoU for an one billion dollar loan from SBI to Adani Group to fund a coal project in Australia.
Narrating another instance, Rahul Gandhi said that in June 2015 Modi went on his first official tour to Bangladesh. Adani Power signed an MoU with Bangladesh to develop a 1600 MW thermal power plant. Media reports highlighted that this deal made Adani's electricity five times more expensive than the market price of electricity in Bangladesh.
In March 2022, Adani Group bagged two renewable power projects worth 500 million dollars, Rahul said citing media reports. The island's Electricity chief had alleged that Prime Minister Modi was pressurising him to hand over the renewable projects to the Adani group, reports said.
In the Sri Lankan Parliament, a law was passed just to remove the policy of competitive bidding in electricity acquisition deals, Rahul explained. The Opposition in Sri Lanka has alleged that this was done just to legalize Adani's acquisition. In March 2016, Rahul claimed that Adani struck a deal with Israel's Elbit ISTAR and India's Alpha Design Technologies in UAVs. Following this, the Defence Minister awarded Elbit ISTAR a 110 million dollar contract to upgrade and maintain India's MI-17 helicopters, he charged.
In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a visit to Israel and announced joint cooperation in the field of defence. A year later, Adani Group bought 26 percent stakes in Alpha Design Technologies. Moreover, Rahul claimed that the Indian government has awarded drone manufacturing contracts to the Adani group despite HAL and Bharat Dynamics being well-equipped in manufacturing drones. Rahul claimed that the nexus between the Modi government and the Adani conglomerate in striking deals in foreign lands continued in countries like Japan, Sweden, Myanmar, Vietnam, Mozambique and several others.
