1,050 acres of land in Bhagalpur 'gifted' to Adani as BJP defeat imminent: Cong

The Congress on Monday accused the Modi government of handing over more than a thousand acres of farmland in Bihar to the Adani Group at a throwaway price, calling it an election-season “gift” to the business conglomerate and alleging that villagers who tried to resist were intimidated into silence.

At a press briefing in Delhi, Congress media department chairperson Pawan Khera said: “In Bhagalpur’s Pirpainti in Bihar, 10 lakh trees and 1,050 acres of land have been given to rashtra seth (national rich man) Gautam Adani for setting up a power plant at one rupee per year for 33 years. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Bihar today, the villagers there have been placed under house arrest so that they cannot stage a protest.”

The project in question is a 2,400-MW coal-based power plant with an estimated cost of Rs 21,400 crore, announced earlier in the Union Budget as a government project. According to Khera, the Centre initially committed to build and run the plant itself but later “backed out” and handed the project to the Adani Group. “A plant built on Bihar’s land, with the state’s money, generating electricity from its coal, will be sold to Bihar’s people at Rs 6 per unit. This is double loot,” he said.

Khera claimed this was part of a wider pattern in which projects are transferred to Adani ahead of key state elections. “When elections were held in Maharashtra, the power plant project and Dharavi were given to Gautam Adani just before that. Similarly, in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, projects were given to Gautam Adani before the elections. This is a very long list, and whenever the BJP feels that we will lose the election, gifts are given to Gautam Adani beforehand.”

He also alleged irregularities in the acquisition of farmland: “Farmers were intimidated, forced to sign with a pencil, and their land was taken. Then, the electricity generated from the same plant will be sold to the people of Bihar at the rate of Rs 6.75 per unit, while for Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh this rate is Rs 3 to 4.” The Congress leader accused the BJP of hypocrisy, saying: “They run campaigns like ‘ek pedh ma ke naam’ and then they value the same land, which farmers consider their mother, at just one rupee.”

The Adani Group has not issued any public statement in response to these latest allegations. Earlier reports on the Bhagalpur project noted that the plant is intended to address Bihar’s chronic power shortages and will be built in phases over the next five years. State officials have argued that the land allotment follows precedent for industrial development and that compensation is being provided as per law.

The BJP has yet to formally respond to Khera’s charges. However, party leaders have in the past dismissed similar accusations of cronyism, insisting that Adani projects are awarded through due process and contribute to infrastructure and employment in host states.

The controversy comes just weeks ahead of the Bihar assembly elections, where the ruling BJP-JD(U) NDA faces a tight contest against the Congress-RJD alliance. With land acquisition historically a sensitive issue in the state, Congress leaders appear intent on framing the Bhagalpur project as evidence of the Modi government’s alleged nexus with big business at the expense of farmers.

With PTI inputs