Power play

Mumbai, May 11: Mayawati has stormed back to power in Uttar Pradesh — and her emphatic win might spell trouble for some industrialists who were close to the ousted Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party.

However, Anil Ambani and his Rs 11,000-crore gas-based power project in Dadri — which was announced with great fanfare in January 2004 and received strong support from Mulayam’s government — need not worry.

Observers say Mayawati has never voiced any criticism against the project even when former Prime Minister V.P. Singh protested against the poor compensation that the farmers received for the 2000 acres acquired for the mega project.

Singh had accused the Mulayam government of being biased towards the Anil Ambani group. He alleged that Mulayam’s government had used the taxpayers’ money to plonk down 60 per cent of the price for the acquired land.

One can expect major changes in Noida — the bustling industrial enclave near Delhi — where Mayawati and Mulayam have overturned each other’s decisions as soon as they came to power.

After all, Mayawati was instrumental in making Noida a separate administrative district. Mulayam had tried to undo the move and merge it with Ghaziabad in 2003, but had to backtrack nine months later amid strong local protests.

Critics of the Ambanis contend that Mulayam’s gambit — he had scrapped seven of the nine districts that Mayawati had earlier created — had also helped Reliance to acquire land at cheap rates for the Dadri project. But the play of politics in Noida isn’t expected to spill over to Dadri (which abuts Noida) as Ambani’s dream project offers several advantages for the power-starved state.

“It is the world’s largest combined cycle power project. If it comes up, the entire power deficit in the northern region will be wiped out. With such benefits flowing in, it is unlikely that Mayawati will do anything that goes against the project,” a political observer said. Officials at Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG) said they did not wish to comment on the issue.

The project, which encompasses four streams of 1400 mw each, will be developed by Reliance Energy Generation Ltd (REG), a Reliance-ADAG company.