Indian opposition parties deny any wrongdoing in connection with the payment claims against Adani

A group of Indian lawmakers from states where billionaire Gautam Adani is being charged by the U.S. denied any wrongdoing on Friday, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party said they had to answer for contracts they signed while they were in power.

The United States has charged Adani and seven others with agreeing to bribe Indian government officials in order to get solar power contracts in Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and the federal region of Jammu and Kashmir between 2021 and 2022. The officials involved have not been named.

It was said by the Adani Group that the claims made by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission were “baseless” and that the company was “fully compliant with all laws.”

At the time, all of the states named by U.S. officials were run by groups that were against Modi’s ruling alliance.

The Congress party is one of them. They want Adani to be arrested and have said that Modi is protecting him or helping him make deals. Both Modi’s party and Adani have rejected the charges.

In separate statements, the parties that were in power in Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh at the time said that their governments had not made any deals to buy power from the Adani Group. Instead, they said that they had bought power through the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), which is a federal government body.

“There was no dealings with any private party, not even the Adani Group,” said Pratap Keshari Deb, who was energy minister of Odisha at the time that the U.S. government said there were. Deb is from the regional Biju Janata Dal party.

SECI chooses green energy producers for projects by accepting bids and then making deals with power buyers. They said they had “no basis so far” to look into the claims and it wasn’t clear if any of SECI’s covenants had been broken.

Bhupesh Baghel, who used to be the Congress chief minister of Chhattisgarh, said that his government had not given the Adani Group a contract and called for a probe.

The Indian government hasn’t said anything about the U.S. claims in public, and they haven’t answered Reuters’s questions about any investigations.

The government in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh is now led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. They said that any investigation would only bring politicians from other parties to light and that they should explain their views.

The charges would be looked into by the regional rival party that now rules Jammu and Kashmir.

Power, ports, coal, and products made from castor oil are just a few of the things that the Adani Group does. They have projects all over India.