Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of signing a trade deal with the US only to secure the "release" of billionaire businessman Gautam Adani.
"Compromised PM did not strike a trade deal, but a bargain for Adani's release," Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X, after reports that the US has agreed to settle the lawsuit that accused Adani of hiding alleged bribery.
The US government has agreed to settle the lawsuit filed against Adani, who is accused of duping investors by concealing that his company's huge solar energy project in India was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme, according to court filings published Thursday.
India and US have been engaged in talks for a trade deal for months and the countries declared on February the framework of the bilateral trade agreement. The text was released on February 7.
However, the US Supreme on February 20 ruled against Trump's reciprocal tariffs, following which India is reportedly seeking to redraft the agreement.
Reacting to the reports, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh also took a jibe on the Prime Minister, alleging that the India-US trade arrangement was “hopelessly one-sided”.
"And it is also clear why he abruptly halted Operation Sindoor on May 10, 2025, acting on President Trump's threats rather than on our national interest. Reportedly, the Trump Administration is about to drop all charges of corruption against Modani," he said on X.
"How much more compromised can the PM get?" Ramesh asked.
A report by the The New York Times said Adani’s decision to hire a legal team led by Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, played a key role in the developments.
The report said Giuffra, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, met officials at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington last month.
Citing people familiar with the meeting, the report said the legal team argued that prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence and jurisdiction to pursue the case.
The report further claimed that Adani’s representatives indicated the group could invest $10 billion in the US economy and potentially create 15,000 jobs if the charges were dropped.
According to the report, prosecutors maintained that any investment proposal would not influence the case. However, it added that the offer received a favourable response from at least one Justice Department official.
In the lawsuit filed in late 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, who is a director at the group's renewable energy unit Adani Green Energy Ltd, of agreeing to pay about $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials between approximately 2020 and 2024 to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts on terms that expected to yield $2 billion of profit over 20 years.
It was alleged in the lawsuit that Adani Group raised $2 billion in loans and bonds, including from US firms, on the backs of false and misleading statements related to the firm's anti-bribery practices and policies.
The ports-to-energy conglomerate had denied the allegations.
