Viral Photos Fuel Talk: ‘CM Sitting Too Submissively Before Adanis’!
The TDP, while in the opposition, heavily campaigned that the SECI agreement made during Jagan’s regime would burden the people of Andhra Pradesh with a whopping one lakh crore rupees. SECI is going to buy all this electricity from Adani companies and supply it. They said until the elections that because Jagan’s government agreed to buy power at a higher price, the burden would fall on the people. Some TDP leaders even filed cases in court. After coming to power, the government said that if the agreement were cancelled, it would have to pay a penalty of three to three-and-a-half thousand crore rupees, and that even if the people were burdened with 97,000 crore rupees over the next 20 to 25 years, it was okay — and is now continuing the same agreement.
Ultimately, it can be said that the Adani companies are the ones benefiting the most from this. As if the benefits to the Adani companies from the SECI agreement are not enough, the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Department is also buying imported coal from the same company. Though officially this deal appears to have been made through a tender, insiders in the electricity department say there are many things behind the scenes. Not only this — Adani Group already has many investments in Andhra Pradesh, along with ports. Recently, the Andhra Pradesh government issued a GO transferring all the land — 480 acres — allocated for setting up data centres in Vizag to Adani Group’s company, Adani Infra India Private Limited.
In this context, on Wednesday night, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, his son Karan Adani, and other officials met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh. It is said they discussed Adani Group investments and other projects in the state. Here, the key point is that the manner in which Gautam Adani and Karan Adani were seated in front of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has become a major topic of discussion among TDP leaders. Looking at the photos, it appears as if Adani is giving and Chandrababu is receiving — and does not look like industrialists meeting a state chief minister, commented one TDP minister. Even though Adani is known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there is no need for a chief minister to be so submissive, TDP leaders are saying.
Some things are revealed through photos alone. Party leaders are commenting that they do not understand why Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu behaves like this only with certain people. A few months ago, photos came out of Lulu Group head Yusuff Ali placing his hand on Chandrababu’s shoulder in a way that no one else had done. Now, seeing the manner in which they appear to be sitting humbly in front of Gautam Adani and Karan Adani, another leader commented that this does not send a good signal to the public.
