Sharad Pawar visits Adani office, residence amid Opposition demand for JPC probe

Ahmedabad: Senior Opposition leader and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Saturday visited the billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani’s office and residence in Ahmedabad.

Pawar’s meeting with the billionaire, amidst demands by Opposition parties for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into allegations levelled by US short-seller Hindenburg, is causing ripples in the political circles.

Pawar and Adani first inaugurated a factory at a village in Sanand in Ahmedabad and the NCP chief thereafter visited Adani’s residence and office in Ahmedabad, according to sources.

It wasn’t immediately known what transpired at the meeting.

Sharing pictures of him and Adani cutting a ribbon of the factory, Pawar wrote on X, “It was a privilege to inaugurate India’s first Lactoferrin Plant Exympower in Vasna, Chacharwadi, Gujarat along with Mr. Gautam Adani”.

Pawar and Adani had held meetings in April and June this year, which had also raised the political temperature.

In April, Adani visited Pawar’s residence Silver Oak in south Mumbai. That meeting, which lasted for almost two hours, came within days of Pawar coming out in support of Adani and criticising the narrative being built around the Hindenburg report.

His position was seen as a variance with his allies who had been gunning for a JPC to probe into the allegations of fraud and stock market manipulations. However, Adani has denied all allegations.

Pawar had at that time stated that he favoured a Supreme Court committee probing allegations against the Adani group.

Adani had again visited Pawar’s residence in June.

The relationship between Pawar and Adani goes back nearly two decades. In his Marathi autobiography ‘Lok Maze Saangati ‘, published in 2015, Pawar heaped praises on Adani who at the time was venturing into the coal sector. He described Adani as “hard-working, simple, down to earth” and with an ambition to make big in the infrastructure sector.

The veteran leader also wrote that it was at his insistence that Adani ventured into the thermal power sector.

Pawar recounts in the book how Adani built his corporate empire from scratch, starting as a salesman, in Mumbai locals, dabbling in small ventures before trying his luck in the diamond industry.

With inputs from agencies