Tycoon Gautam Adani has been accused of interfering in politics by hosting a dinner where India’s powerful minister for home affairs, Amit Shah, was present with senior politicians from the western Indian state of Maharashtra who were being cajoled to join the ruling BJP. The revelation has come just before elections in Maharashtra where the BJP-controlled government is being attacked by its opponents for having allegedly favoured the Adani Group with lucrative contracts, including a controversial one to redevelop Dharavi, one of the world’s largest shanty towns.
Gautam Adani refuses to let the headlines leave him. Even as his public-relations machinery promoted his congratulations to Donald Trump and his pledge to invest US $10 billion in the USA’s energy infrastructure, back at home Adani was in the news for all the wrong reasons.
Two politicians claimed that Adani hosted a dinner five years ago at which India’s second-most powerful politician, Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, was present. Influential leaders from the western Indian state of Maharashtra (India’s second most populous state, with Mumbai its capital) were invited. There’s much more to the dinner than meets the eye.
Shah is considered the right-hand man of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His presence at a dinner at Adani’s residence in New Delhi’s posh Golf Links area five years ago has raised more than a few eyebrows about the tycoon’s ‘interference’ in political affairs. These revelations are salient because elections are taking place in Maharashtra (20 November 2024).
The political opposition in Maharashtra is already up in arms against Adani because of the way in which the corporate conglomerate was granted a contract to redevelop Dharavi, a huge shantytown located in the heart of Mumbai. Dharavi was made famous by the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and is frequently described as Asia’s largest slum.
Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray (belonging to the Shiv Sena political party), and leader of the opposition in the lower house of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi (of the Congress party), have both publicly stated on several occasions that the contract to redevelop Dharavi granted to an Adani-controlled entity would be scrapped if the political coalition of which they are a part is elected to power in the state. Their coalition is called the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition.
As the newsletter of the portal NewsLaundry revealed, the dinner hosted in 2019 by Adani ‘set off tectonic shifts in political corridors — there’s a renewed curiosity about (what happened) … behind-the-scenes of [one of] India’s most dramatic political upheavals’.
On the agenda at the dinner was the possibility of support for the ruling BJP by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Key people from this party included the current deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, and his uncle, Sharad Pawar, an important political veteran who founded the NCP and a former Union minister for agriculture and defence.
Whereas this gambit failed at that time, two years later, the government led by Thackeray was toppled when members of the legislative assembly suddenly changed their political affiliation. On 30 June 2022, a new government assumed power in Maharashtra, with Eknath Shinde (leading a section of the Shiv Sena that parted ways with the original one) becoming chief minister and the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis becoming the state’s deputy chief minister. Soon thereafter, the two were joined by Ajit Pawar who was also designated deputy chief minister.
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In the NewsLaundry interview, the junior Pawar spilt the beans on his political somersault. A few days later, the senior Pawar confirmed to NewLaundry that the dinner meeting had indeed taken place at Adani’s residence.
‘It was a dinner meeting,’ said Sharad Pawar, adding that he agreed to attending it because his colleagues in the NCP felt pressured over cases reportedly brought against them by the BJP government in New Delhi. They believed there was ‘no escape’ for them unless their party decided to ‘go’ with the BJP.
The senior Pawar explained the unusual choice of the venue of the dinner, his own long relationship with Adani when few knew about him, the backlash from the Congress party on his association with the businessman, his antagonism towards Modi, the elections in Maharashtra, and whether there were chances of his nephew Ajit Pawar being welcomed back to the NCP after he recently became part of a breakaway faction. Watch the interview with Sharad Pawar here.
Political analysts wondered about the timing of the junior Pawar’s disclosure just before the elections, and speculated about whether he would return to the folds of his uncle’s party.
Be that as it may, it is hardly a secret that Indian businessmen have an all-too-cosy relationship with politicians and can influence government policies and programs. The new revelations add to speculation about how this happens.
Whereas Ajit Pawar and Fadnavis have subsequently sought to play down the importance of the dinner meeting, Adani has not reacted publicly.
The writer is an independent journalist.
