Rahul Gandhi demands Gautam Adani's arrest after US charges

MUMBAI: India's billionaire tycoon Gautam Adani should be arrested after US prosecutors charged him with paying more than $250 million in bribes to secure lucrative government contracts, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said Thursday.

Opposition leader Gandhi's demand came after shares in the industrialist's conglomerate nosedived nearly 20% in Mumbai, the morning after a bombshell indictment in New York accused him of deliberately misleading international investors.

Adani is a close ally of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and was at one point the world's second-richest man, and critics have long accused him of improperly benefitting from their relationship.

"We demand that Adani be immediately arrested. But we know that won't happen as Modi is protecting him," Gandhi told reporters in New Delhi.

"Modi can't act even if he wants to, because he is controlled by Adani."

Wednesday's indictment accuses Adani and multiple subordinates of paying huge sums of more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts.

The deals were projected to generate more than $2 billion in profits after tax over roughly 20 years.

None of the multiple defendants named in the case are in custody.

Adani and two other board members of his Adani Group "lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from US and international investors", US attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.

The indictment drove steep losses in flagship listed unit Adani Enterprises and multiple other subsidiaries immediately after the Mumbai stock exchange reopened on Thursday.

The conglomerate's renewable energy subsidiary acknowledged the charges against the tycoon and two other Adani Group board members in a brief statement.

Adani Green Energy said it had decided to halt a planned bond sale "in light of these developments", but did not offer further comment on the allegations.

His nephew and board member Sagar Adani, also named in the indictment, told AFP in October that there was "no political connection" between Adani Group and the Modi government.

"We basically set up what the government really needs, in their best interest," he added.

"All the projects we got have not been granted by any concession but through an independent and transparent auction system."

Modi's government has yet to comment on the charges but a spokesman for his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Malviya, said the indictment appeared to implicate opposition parties rather than his own.