GVK Group Vice Chairman Sanjay Reddy on Tuesday said there was absolutely no pressure from the Adani Group or anyone else to sell the Mumbai airport.His comments come on a day when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged in Lok Sabha that “Mumbai airport, was taken away from GVK using agencies such as the CBI and the ED, and was given to Adani by the Government of India”.In an interview to television channel NDTV on Tuesday, Sanjay Reddy said, “There was absolutely no pressure from the Adani group or anyone else for us to sell the Mumbai airport.” While explaining the circumstances that led to the sale of the airport, Reddy said the group was looking to raise funds for the airport business.
Reddy said that at that time, Gautam Adani approached him and said he had a lot of interest in the airport and whether GVK group was willing to do a transaction with him.“… He (Adani) said that he will assure that we will conclude the entire transaction in one month which was very important for us. So, from that perspective whatever we did was in the interest of the company and the lenders who we had to repay and therefore, we had to close the transaction with Adani because we didn’t see any light of day with the other investors,” Reddy said. On February 7, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi alleged that the Modi administration had changed many rules to Adani's advantage. “PM Modi goes to Australia and by magic, SBI gives $1 billion loan to Adani. Then he goes to Bangladesh & then the Bangladesh Power development board signs a 25-yrs contract with Adani," he said. The chairman of the Sri Lankan energy board revealed before the country's legislative committee in 2022 that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had claimed that PM Modi had put pressure on him to award Adani a wind power project, Gandhi added. For the unversed, Adani Group took over the management of the Mumbai airport from the GVK Group in July 2021.