‘Over Rs 12,000 crore may have been siphoned off’: Cong steps up attack over fresh Adani Group ‘revelations’

New Delhi: Escalating its attack on Adani Group and its alleged closeness with country’s top leadership, Congress party on Friday alleged that more than Rs 12,000 crore may have been siphoned out of the country in past 2 years.

Cong’s fresh attack on alleged Adani-Centre link comes on back of a foreign publication report, which claims to have unearthed irregularities in company’s coal imports and how it was inflating coal invoices and passing on the burden to consumers.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, issued a detailed statement over alleged over-pricing by country’s one of the biggest conglomerate and dubbed it the ‘biggest scam’ of modern India.

“This was not a metaphorical loot’ but literal theft from pockets of crores of Indians,” he stated.

“This is the biggest scam of modern India. It combines greed and heartlessness with a cold contempt for the people of India. It is based on the conviction that there is no scam that cannot be ‘managed’ and that there is no issue that cannot be diverted from. But the Shahenshah is mistaken. India will not be captured by Modani. The people of India will answer in 2024,” Ramesh said in his statement.

Notably, the shares of Adani Group companies also suffered big losses in the stock markets today, apparently on back of Financial Times report. The leading companies of Adani Group came under selling pressure, while the flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd tanked upto 3%.

The Financial Times, in its investigative report citing sources, said that billionaire Gautam Adani led group over-invoiced imported coal prices to enrich itself and made consumers pay more for the electricity charges.

Jairam Ramesh, highlighting the wrongdoings, also lashed out at ruling BJP dispensation and accused it of helping the Adani group in acquiring more assets while in turn benefitting from it via electoral bond funds.

“By helping Adani group acquire assets, the BJP is kept flush with electoral bond funds which allows it to buy MLAs at will and break opposition parties’, he said.

Jairam said that Financial Times newspaper studied 30 Adani coal shipments between 2019 and 2021 amounting to 3.1 million tones and found 52% profit margin, even in a low-margin business like coal trading.

Adani Group is yet to issue any clarification or rebuttal to reports of irregularities in coal imports & its inflated invoicing.