No choice but to defend brazenly questionable decision-making in Dharavi project: Jairam Ramesh takes swipe at Maha govt

The Maharashtra government came under fire from the Congress on Wednesday over the Dharavi slum redevelopment project, claiming that it was forced to defend its brazenly questionable decision-making in order to aid the Adani Group in acquiring control of a valuable piece of Mumbai real estate.

The opposition party's attack came after the Maharashtra government told the Bombay High Court that the new tender issued in 2022 for the Dharavi slum redevelopment project in Mumbai was transparent and no undue favour was shown to the highest bidder  the Adani Group.

In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also took a swipe at Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, saying it is noteworthy that he handed Dharavi over to Adani on his last day as housing minister, but it was another matter that this favour hasn't yet paid off for the perpetual CM-in-waiting.

Having executed the PM's orders and delivered the Dharavi slum development project to his most favoured businessman, the Maharashtra government is left with no choice but to defend its brazenly questionable decision-making and contortions to help the Adani Group take control of a prize real estate asset in the heart of India's commercial capital, Mumbai, Ramesh said.

The original Dharavi tender, which a Dubai-based firm had won with a bid of Rs 7,200 crore, was cancelled in 2020 because of issues related to the transfer of railway land, he said. But the conditions of the 2022 tender issued by the BJP-led state government were designed to help the Adani Group, which had come off second-best in the original tender, and exclude the original winner, the Congress leader alleged.

This included a doubling of the net worth of bidders to Rs 20,000 crore and permitted the winner to pay in installments rather than as a one-time payment as originally specified, which helped the cash-strapped Adani Group win with a bid of Rs 5,069 crore, ie Rs 2,131 crore less compared to the original winning bid, Ramesh alleged.