The Lok Sabha is session on March 12, 2025. Photo: Sansad TV via PTI
Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) members walked out of the Lok Sabha on Wednesday to express their dissatisfaction with the reply given by Union Minister Pralhad Joshi on reported clearance granted to a renewable energy project near the India-Pakistan border.
Asking a supplementary question during Question Hour, Congress leader Manish Tewari said national security and energy security have to go hand in hand. Though he did not name any particular group, his question was in connection with a news report in The Guardian last month claiming the government had changed security regulations on the Gujarat-Pakistan border to allow the Adani Group to set up a renewable energy park.
Mr. Tewari claimed the mixed renewable energy project will run up to a kilometre of the International Border (IB) and noted that as per security protocol, any big infrastructure project should be at least 10 km away from the IB. He asked whether any relaxation had been granted to the proposed project.
Mr. Joshi, the Minister for New and Renewable Energy, said all approvals and licences to any proposal are granted after obtaining clearances from the Centre, the State, and relevant agencies.
Upset with the reply, the Congress members trooped into the Well of the House and started raising slogans on national security. When Speaker Om Birla refused to take note of their protest, the Congress and DMK members staged a walkout.
Shell companies in Mauritius
Separately, the Congress also raked up alleged links of the Adani Group with some shell companies in Mauritius. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a state visit to the island nation.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, targeted the government for “failing” to investigate charges of money laundering. He said Mauritius is an important financial centre and a long time ally of India. “However, the relationship was tarnished by credible allegations that shell companies in Mauritius were used by Adani and his associates to engage in large-scale money-laundering, round-tripping, and tax evasion,” he said.
Mr. Ramesh claimed that a Supreme Court-monitored SEBI investigation that was supposed to take two months has gone on for two years “in part because of its failure to obtain information from foreign jurisdictions involved in the Adani MegaScam”.
“Rather than encourage his counterparts to share the information needed to prosecute the financial skulduggery of his close friends, we fear that he will continue to protect them via acts of omission and commission,” Mr. Ramesh alleged.
He also alleged that “this wholesale capture” of the Indian economy and its leading institutions “explains why the biggest corruption scam in Indian history has yet to achieve closure”.
“It explains how and why election tampering has occurred in Maharashtra and elsewhere. The answer can only be a full-scale investigation by a JPC,” the Congress leader added.
Published – March 13, 2025 02:01 am IST
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