‘No pressure from anyone to sell Mumbai airport’, says GVK Group after Rahul Gandhi’s remarks in Parliament

The GVK Group had signed an agreement to let Adani Enterprises acquire its stake in Mumbai airport and Navi Mumbai airport on August 31, 2020. However, months before the takeover, the GVK Group had tried to fend off the Adanis by signing an agreement with investors, including India’s sovereign fund (the NIIF), in October 2019.

The Adani Group took over the management of the Mumbai airport in 2021.

GVK Group Vice Chairman Sanjay Reddy, while speaking to a TV channel, said, “(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.”

Gandhi, meanwhile, speaking in Lok Sabha, alleged, “There was a rule that anybody who does not have prior experience in airports cannot be involved in development of airports. The Government changed this rule…and Adani was given six airports. After that India’s most strategic airport, profitable airport… Mumbai airport was taken away from GVK…hijacked by using agencies. By pressurising the GVK using CBI and ED…the Government gave that airport to Adani.”

Incidentally, a month before GVK decided to sell the aiport to Adani, the group had to face the heat from multiple investigative agencies, with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducting searches at the offices of GVK Group and the residences of its promoters in Mumbai and Hyderabad, in connection with a money laundering case for alleged irregularities in the development of Mumbai international airport.

— with inputs from PTI