Sudhanshu Trivedi questions timing of US indictment of Adani before Parliament session

New Delhi: BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi on Sunday questioned the timing of the US indictment of billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani, arguing why such allegations by foreign countries are of late coming just before the beginning of Parliament session.

The BJP spokesperson was speaking at a session titled "RSS ke 100 saal" on the concluding day of Sahitya Aaj Tak, a literary festival, at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium here.

"For the past three-four years, such allegations are surfacing whenever a Parliament session is about to start, be it the Hindenburg report, BBC report, the Great Thunberg report and now this. Such allegations coming from foreign countries should be objected by everyone. Ideally, we should say we would work as per our own legal system, and not theirs," Trivedi said.

The Winter Session of Parliament will begin on Monday and run till December 20.

The US Department of Justice has accused Adani of being part of an elaborate scheme to pay USD 265 million (about Rs 2,200 crore) bribe to Indian officials in exchange for favourable terms for solar power contracts in four Indian states.

The Adani Group has called the charges "baseless", and vowed to pursue all possible legal recourse against them.

Citing the indictment, Trivedi said the states where government officials were allegedly paid bribes by the Adani Group between July 2021 and February 2022 were Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, which were all ruled by the opposition parties then, including the Congress.

"If you feel these allegations are true, those who were ruling the states then should resign. You can't have it both ways," he added.

While Odisha was then ruled by the BJD and the YSR Congress Party was in power in Andhra Pradesh, two regional parties unaffiliated to either the ruling or the opposition alliance at the time, Congress ally DMK was and remains in power in Tamil Nadu.

Congress was also at the helm in Chhattisgarh when bribes were allegedly paid to government officials.

Taking about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which will complete its 100 years in 2025, Trivedi said it is a vast organisation pro-actively working for the welfare of the society since 1925, and limiting it to just the BJP and politics will be absolutely wrong.

To buttress his point, Trivedi gave the example of how out of the total strength of 3,376 RSS pracharaks, only 26 are currently part of the BJP.

"The biggest student's body today -- the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad -- is an RSS wing. Vidhya Bharti, which runs 30,000 schools across the country, is an RSS body.

"The biggest union of farmers -- the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh -- is run by the RSS. Seva Bharti, which works for the upliftment of Dalits in villages, is also an RSS body. Similarly, the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the largest organisaton working in the field of religion, is also part of the RSS," he said.