After targeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra and BJP president Nitin Gadkari, Arvind Kejriwal has now assailed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accusing him of granting undue favours to some corporate companies.
At a crowded news conference here on Tuesday, the chief of the newly launched Aam Aadmi Party charged the Gujarat government with ‘gifting away’ a gas exploration project to Geo Global Resources, which led to a windfall gain of Rs. 20,000 crore to the firm.
Maintaining that the impression of Mr. Modi being honest was wrong, the AAP chief said, “He has gifted away 20% of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation’s stake in the Krishna-Godavari Basin to two companies, Geo Global and Jubilant Enpro Private limited.”
However, the BJP refuted the charge, saying it was “factually baseless, motivated and mischievous.”
On adjournment of Parliament over the issue, BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “The repeated adjournment initiated by the Congress in both Houses is factually baseless and motivated. The GSPC already circulated the Carried Interest Agreement with Geo Global Resources in 2010 itself.”
He said the GSPC had also written five letters to the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, requesting modification of the production-sharing contract, but it had not been done for the last more than two years.
“Therefore, the Ministry is at fault and there has been no production till date from the gas block, nor even a single farthing paid,” Mr. Prasad said.
GSPC denies charges
Separately, Tapan Ray, GSPC managing director, has written to the Editor of the Tehelka magazine, which carried the story, terming all allegations against it baseless and without complete appraisal of facts.
