Ruckus at AMC general board meet: Opposition, BJP trade ‘Adani agent’, ‘Pak agent’ barbs

The events unfolded when Pathan, during his address on the corporation’s budget, stated that the civic body has incurred losses worth crores due to the Adani Group; yet, it has failed to take any action against the company.

“I do not want to raise this (the Hindenburg Research report on Adani Group) issue in AMC but want to highlight the losses faced by the civic body due to Adani Group,” Pathan stated, alleging that the relationship between Adani and AMC is over 15 years old. These ‘practices’ began from AMC as the civic body allowed it to “cover up its acts” due to which it had taken over the world now, he said.

He also alleged that AMC had exempted the group of Rs 12 crore in tax. “The state government gave a monopoly to Adani Total Gas Limited by giving it the licence to sell CNG in Ahmedabad city. For this, in 2006, Adani was given 10 plots in prime locations in the city at a meagre amount of Rs 16 crore while the market value of these was around Rs 500 crore. No payments were made by the company despite extension of deadlines. Later, an agreement was made between both. It was decided to collect money by providing CNG from Adani CNG pumps for Amdavad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) buses from 2006 to 2012-23. This not only saved the company from making the payment but also increased his business,” said Pathan.

Accusing AMC of its failure to act against the group for defaulting on property tax worth Rs 12 crore, the Congress corporator from Danilimda stated, “On one hand, AMC seals small shops for defaulting on tax payments but no AMC official has so far dared to seal an Adani’s office for defaulting on tax payments of Rs 12 crore, which is still pending.”

However, AMC’s revenue committee chairman Jainik Vakil intervened saying the matter is pending before the Supreme Court and the Adani Group has been paying an amount on adhoc basis.

“Whenever there is a talk about Adani, its agent comes in its support but despite other cases pending in the courts, BJP seals their (other defaulters’) properties,” stated Pathan. In response, an enraged Vakil responded saying “it seems” Pathan was a “Pakistan agent”.

Following this, a ruckus ensued in the house as AMC councillors sloganeering with “Adani ki vakalat band karo”.

When the house resumed after lunch, Pathan said he was withdrawing his words if it had “somebody”. Vakil followed by stating “if the LoP is taking his words back, I too withdraw my words”.