Rahul Gandhi links Adani relief in US report to India FTA, targets PM Modi: ‘Not trade deal, but a bargain’

LEader of oppositeness in the Lok Sabha, Rahul indira gandhi on fri sharpened his assail on ground Minister Narendra Modi after reports suggested that US authorities were planning to drop fraud charges against billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani.A Bloomberg report based on people familiar with the matter, reported that the US Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could move to resolve charges linked to Adani as early as this week, around 18 months after the allegations first surfaced in 2024.The development prompted Gandhi to allege that the Prime Minister had compromised India’s interests while negotiating the interim India-US trade framework.Invoking his earlier “compromised PM” jibe, Gandhi wrote on X, “The compromised PM did not strike a trade deal, but a bargain for Adani's release.” US-India deal ‘hopelessly one-sided’Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also took a jibe on the Prime Minister, alleging that the India-US trade arrangement was “hopelessly one-sided”.“It is now clear why the PM agreed to the hopelessly one-sided Indo-US trade ‘deal’ that was really a steal by the US,” Ramesh said in a post on X.He further linked the issue to India’s military posture earlier this year, claiming Modi had “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. How much more compromised can the PM get?” he added.Trump lawyer’s role under scrutinyA 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.What were the allegations against Adani?The criminal indictment filed by the US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York, had alleged that Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and other executives were part of a scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts worth billions of dollars.According to the 2024 indictment, the contracts were projected to generate more than $2 billion in post-tax profits over nearly two decades.“As alleged in the indictment, between approximately 2020 and 2024, the defendants agreed to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts with the Indian government,” the indictment said.The document also alleged that Adani personally met an Indian government official to discuss the alleged bribery arrangement.US prosecutors further claimed that investors were misled about the alleged scheme while the group sought funding from American and international investors.The allegations had posed a major challenge for the Adani Group’s business prospects in the United States. The conglomerate, however, had rejected the accusations as “baseless”.SEC lawsuit settledSeparately, Reuters reported on Thursday that the US SEC had settled a civil lawsuit against Gautam Adani, subject to court approval.The development comes even as political sparring between the Congress and the BJP over the Adani issue continues to intensify.