On Thursday, April 20, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar and industrialist Gautam Adani had a two-hour-long meeting at Pawar’s Silver Oak residence. Adani reportedly arrived at Pawar’s residence at around 10 am on Thursday. Though not much has been disclosed about the meeting, media reorts state that the two discussed various issues concerning the country.
The meeting comes days after Pawar raised a stir in the camp of the Opposition earlier this month when he declared that he was opposed to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigation into a report by short-selling firm Hindenburg on the Adani Group because he believed the Adani Group was being “targeted.”
In an interview with NDTV, Pawar said, “Such statements were given by other individuals too earlier and there was a ruckus in parliament for a few days but this time out of proportion importance was given to the issue. The issues that were kept, who kept them, we had never heard of these people who gave the statement, what is the background. When they raise issues that cause a ruckus across the country, the cost is borne by the country’s economy, we cannot disregard these things. It seemed that an individual industrial group was targeted.”
Furthermore, Pawar distanced himself from the Congress’s demand for a JPC probe and stated that he disagreed with the Congress-led Opposition’s decision to stall Parliament on the issue.
He claimed that following the demand was made, the Supreme Court opened an inquiry and formed a team that included a former judge of the supreme court, an expert, an administrator, and an economist. They received guidelines and a deadline for conducting the investigation.
#LIVE | 'Allegations have yet not been proven,' Ajit Pawar makes big statement on Adani-Hindenburg row after Pawar-Adani meeting.#AjitPawar #AdaniHindenburg #GautamAdani #SharadPawar https://t.co/JBOJSkzlid pic.twitter.com/95KzbNVmEH
— Republic (@republic) April 21, 2023
In another development, NCP leader Ajit Pawar has reportedly said that the charges against industrialist Gautam Adani and the Adani Group have not been proven yet adding that the allegations are yet to be established. Pawar gave this statement in the context of the Hindenberg report.