Pawar visits Adani’s office, residence in Ahmedabad, inaugurates plant
NCP chief, who has backed industrialist going against the Opposition stance, inaugurates factory at Sanand village along with Adani
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar visited billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani’s office and residence in Ahmedabad on Saturday (September 23).
Pawar has met the embattled business tycoon earlier, too, even amid demands by Opposition parties for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into allegations levelled by US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research, raising several eyebrows.
On Saturday, Pawar and Adani first inaugurated a factory at a village in Sanand in Ahmedabad. Pawar posted on X (Twitter) pictures of him and Adani cutting a ribbon of the factory, with the caption: “It was a privilege to inaugurate India’s first Lactoferrin Plant Exympower in Vasna, Chacharwadi, Gujarat along with Mr. Gautam Adani.”
The NCP chief thereafter visited Adani’s residence and office in Ahmedabad, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
It wasn’t immediately known what transpired at the meeting.
Pawar's support
In April this year, 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 varying from that of his allies, such as Congress, who had been gunning for a JPC to probe allegations of fraud and stock market manipulations. Pawar at that time stated that he favoured a Supreme Court committee probing allegations against the Adani group.
Adani, who has denied all allegations, in turn, visited Pawar’s residence in June.
Pawar-Adani ties
The relationship between Pawar and Adani goes back nearly two decades. In his Marathi autobiography Lok Maze Saangatia, published in 2015, Pawar heaped praise on Adani, who, at the time, was venturing into the coal sector.
Pawar 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 recounted 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 agency inputs)
