From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday sought a probe by the Enforcement Directorate into Prime Minister Modi acting as a “sales agent” of Adanis to pressurise Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksha to give a wind power project to his group and the repeated attempts by the state-owned State Bank of India (SBI) to give loans to the Adani group.
Its spokesman Gourav Vallabh told a press conference here that he was giving just two out of several instances where the central agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate, chose to look the other way.
He said in the first case, Modi’s role was revealed by the chairman of the Sri Lankan state-owned Ceylon Electricity Board before a Parliament panel of that country that “the honourable PM” was allegedly batting for business gains for a private individual in a foreign land. Isn’t this a case of corruption worth investigation, he asked.
In another case, as soon as the Modi government came to power in 2014, SBI drafted an in-principle agreement with the Adani group for a $1 billion (Rs 7,825 crore) but it had to back off and scrap the MoU. In 2020, the SBI extended another loan of Rs 5,000 crore to Adani’s Carmichael coal project in Australia. It is stuck because of pressure from the investors. No updates since last year bout the loan status.
Prof. Gourav Vallabh said this looks like concerted effort by someone to provide a loan to the Adani group. Doesn’t it call for a probe by ED? Has the ED ever called anyone from the Adani group or is it planning to probe these serious allegations, he asked.
What credibility does an agency like ED have who is on a political witch-hunt but failing on its duty of investigating severe allegations and crimes, the professor asked.
He said in the wake of the BJP government’s all claims exposed in the last 8 years, whether tall or false, showing across all sphere, it has again resorted to cheap tricks, like questioning Rahul Gandhi over the last five days to malign his reputation in a mere political stunt.
Prof. Gourav Vallabh accused the ED of taking “enforced directives” from the central government to resort to such political stunts.
