Jairam, Adani lock horns over coal mine

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has locked horns with industrialist Gautam Adani over rights to mine coal in Chhattisgarh with the former environment minister accusing him of benefiting from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “largesse”.

Hitting back at Adani’s claims that the Congress was “unnecessarily” dragging the corporate sector into “politics”, Ramesh said the industrialist should at least show the intellectual honesty to acknowledge the issue in dispute.

“That he is a beneficiary of Narendra Modi’s largesse both as chief minister of Gujarat and prime minister of India is beyond any doubt,” he said.

Ramesh said Adani has “conveniently forgotten” that the issue was not about his company being selected as the mine operator by the Rajasthan government but that of denial of community rights to tribals in the region.