Congress Accuses BJP of “Selling Uttarakhand” – Scraps 1320 MW State PSU Power Project to Benefit Adani, Changes 84 Out Of 86 Tender Conditions: Pawan Khera
New Delhi/Dehradun: With assembly elections in Uttarakhand drawing near, the political offensive and counter-offensive between the BJP and Congress has intensified sharply, marked on one side by the Enforcement Directorate conducting searches after ten long years at the residence of former Chief Minister Harish Rawat’s personal assistant and unearthing Rs 32 lakhs in cash and total wealth of Rs 1.28 crores in connection with the 2016 UKSSSC scam, and on the other by the Congress launching a scathing attack on the BJP government at the Centre and Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami for abruptly cancelling the long-conceived 1320 megawatt thermal power plant project that was proposed in Uttarakhand to cater to the genuine power needs of the people of the Himalayan state.
Addressing a hard-hitting press conference at the AICC headquarters in Delhi today, senior Congress leader and Chairman of the Media and Publicity Department, Pawan Khera, came down heavily on the BJP dispensation, alleging that the state government had scrapped the pre-conceived joint public sector project of government enterprises UJVN and THDC only to allegedly benefit industrialist Gautam Adani by allowing him to establish a plant of the same capacity in Chhattisgarh.
Khera alleged that out of 86 conditions in the tender, 84 were amended to suit the private player, terming it a brazen act of crony favouritism.
Raising the slogan “Pushkar Selling Uttarakhand,” Khera said another PSU has done its “Gautam Sharnam Gachchhami” and that 99 percent of the tender rules had been changed to benefit a single industrialist, depriving the state of its own power asset and burdening the people with a 25-year power purchase commitment from a private plant located outside the state.
Reacting strongly to the revelations, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader and spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said on his official X handle, “If Modi wants it, nothing is impossible! Across BJP-ruled states in the country, an open loot of the people’s rights is underway to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s capitalist friend Adani. A fresh example of this has emerged in Uttarakhand. To buy electricity for 25 years from Adani’s power plant in Chhattisgarh, the Uttarakhand BJP government scrapped the proposed joint public sector project of government enterprises UJVN and THDC and changed 84 out of 86 conditions in the new tender. Today, with these important revelations, my colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Shri Pawan Khera ji held a press conference at the Congress headquarters. We believe that this case of creating a monopoly for Adani under the ‘Modani Model’ by sidelining rules, laws, and the interests of the people is objectionable and highly condemnable. The people of Uttarakhand are watching everything, and the BJP will definitely get an answer for this in the upcoming assembly elections.”
Khera asserted that the cancellation of a public sector thermal project that could have ensured energy security for the power-thirsty inhabitants of Uttarakhand and instead entering into a long-term agreement to buy power from Adani’s Chhattisgarh plant after altering almost the entire tender document raises serious questions about transparency, public interest and the intent of the double-engine government.
He demanded a thorough probe into the entire tender amendment process and the decision to scrap the state-based project, alleging that the BJP government in Uttarakhand was mortgaging the interests of the state to help its corporate friends.
