At a time when the Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi takes to tarnish the name of India’s private sector and industrialists, its Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra has just finalised the handing over of stressed-out Dighi Port to Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ). Dighi Port becomes the twelfth port in India to join APSEZ’s string of economic gateways across the eastern and western coast of India, and would go a long way to establish the company’s footprint in Maharashtra. It is quite poetic how Rahul Gandhi’s rants against India’s private sector are merely for optics, even as an alliance government in Maharashtra, of which the Congress is a part, participates actively in the Adani group expanding its base along Maharashtra coastline.
APSEZ has now completed 100 per cent acquisition of the Dighi Port Limited for Rs 705 crore. Until 2018, the port was facing insolvency proceedings in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). The MVA-controlled Maharashtra Maritime Board has also granted concession rights to the Adani Group. Earlier, the Maharashtra Maritime Board, under the Maharashtra government, was tasked with Dighi Port’s administration.
APSEZ plans to invest over Rs 10,000 crore to develop the port into a multi-cargo port with world-class infrastructure as well as investing in the development of rail and road evacuation infrastructure for seamless cargo movement. The company will also use the investment to strengthen and repair existing infrastructure and for development of facilities for dry, container, and liquid cargo. Earlier, the port, promoted by industrialist Vijay Kalantri, had gone bankrupt under a debt of Rs 3,098 crore due to be paid to lenders. The Committee of Creditors had received bids from JNPT, APSEZ and Veritas Consortium, and finally, APSEZ’s bid was selected.
According to Business Standard, the development of DPL will lead to further investments across various industries such as consumer appliances, metals, energy, petrochemicals, and chemicals business in Maharashtra and provide a tremendous fillip to the industrial development and growth in Maharashtra. The same has not been given a miss by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government. The Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government, which has an alliance with the Congress and NCP in any case does not have much to its credit in terms of development or governance. As such, the alliance piggybacking on the development done by the private sector is its best shot to even contest the next assembly elections.
In such a scenario, the inane accusations of Rahul Gandhi become insignificant. The Gandhi-scion may go on abusing the Ambani-Adani duo as a symbol of supposed crony capitalism in India, but the reality is that when it comes to development, the Congress is totally reliant on the private sector it so enthusiastically likes to hate.
On February 7, meanwhile, Adani Airport Holdings (AAHL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, has acquired 23.5 percent stake in Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) for a sum of Rs 1,685.25 crore. Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi is choosing to keep mum on such transactions occurring in a state partly ruled by his party at present.
And why would Rahul Gandhi, or the Congress speak on such developments? They happen to be in stark contrast to the strangely-adopted crude socialist line of the party. Therefore, while Rahul Gandhi conveniently chooses to attack the Modi government for seemingly pushing for the growth of the private sector, he remains mum when a government of which his own party is a part does the same. The politics of convenience, one may say, can be rather shameless.