Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Friday intensified his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after reports indicated that US authorities were planning to drop fraud charges against billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani.
The US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could move to resolve charges linked to Adani as early as this week, about 18 months after the allegations first surfaced in 2024, a Bloomberg report said, based on people familiar with the matter.
This development prompted Gandhi to claim that the Prime Minister had harmed India’s interests while negotiating the Interim Trade Framework between India and the United States.
Referring to his earlier jibe at the “compromising PM”, Gandhi wrote on X, “The compromising PM did not make a trade deal, but a deal to release Adani.”
US-India deal ‘hopelessly one-sided’
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also criticized the Prime Minister, alleging that the India-US trade arrangement was “hopelessly one-sided”.
“It is now clear why the Prime Minister agreed to the desperate one-sided Indo-US ‘trade deal’ which was in fact theft by the US,” Ramesh said in a post on X.
He also linked the issue to India’s military posture earlier this year, claiming that Modi “suddenly halted Operation Sindoor on May 10, 2025, based on President Trump’s threats and not on our national interest.”
“The Trump administration is reportedly on the verge of dropping all corruption charges against Modani. How vulnerable can the Prime Minister be?” He added.
The role of Trump’s lawyer under the microscope
A New York Times report said Adani’s decision to appoint 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.
Giuffra, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, met with officials at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington last month, the report said.
Citing people familiar with the meeting, the report said the legal team argued that prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence and judicial authority to pursue the case.
The report also claimed that Adani representatives indicated that 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 stressed that any investment proposal would not affect the case. But she added that the offer received a positive response from at least one Justice Department official.
What are the charges against Adani?
The criminal indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, New York, alleged that Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and other executives were part of a scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure billions of dollars in solar contracts.
According to the 2024 indictment, the contracts were expected to generate more than $2 billion in after-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 reads.
The document also alleged that Adani personally met with an Indian government official to discuss the alleged bribery arrangements.
US prosecutors also alleged that investors were misled about the alleged scheme while the group sought funding from US and international investors.
These allegations posed a major challenge to the Adani Group’s business prospects in the United States. However, the group rejected these accusations, describing them as “unfounded.”
The SEC lawsuit was settled
Separately, Reuters reported on Thursday that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has settled a civil suit against Gautam Adani, subject to court approval.
This development comes even as the political debate continues to escalate between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party over the Adani issue.
