IAC targets Mukesh Ambani, accuses government of crony capitalism

IAC39s Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan demanded that the KrishnaGodavari KG basin allotted to Reliance Industries be scrapped and accused the UPA government of favouring the RIL by giving contract on gas exploration in KG Basin and concessions at a huge cost to the exchequer quotTheir KG Basin contract should be cancelled The government should immediately put in place adequate systems to get full production from KG Basin at the cheapest price for the countryquot Kejriwal and Bhushan slammed what they called a quotclassic case of crony capitalismquot and charged that Reliance was quotblackmailingquot the government to hike the price of gas by quotalmost stoppingquot the production and indulging in quothoarding like petty tradersquot quotMukesh Ambani is running the country it seemsquot Kejriwal told the media here quotJaipal Reddy was removed as he refused to hike the charges levied by Reliance Industries to supply gas to the NTPC National Thermal Power Corpquot Reliance called the charges quotirresponsiblequot Petroleum minister M Veerappa Moily declined to comment on the allegations According to Kejriwal the KG basin was awarded to Reliance in 2000 by the NDA government when the company agreed to supply gas to the NTPC for the next 17 years at 234 per unit But said Kejriwal the company revised the rate to 425 per unit in 2007 which then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee agreed to as the head of an empowered group of ministers benefiting Reliance to the tune of Rs10000 crore quotThe entire contract was meant to benefit Reliance because the cost would be determined by the company and if the cost increases so will the profitquot he said adding this was unheard of in business Kejriwal alleged that in 2006 then petroleum minister Mani Shankar Iyer was removed and Murli Deora brought in to increase Reliance Industries39 capital expenditure from 239 billion to 88 billion and to hike gas price from 234 per unit to 425 per unit Later the company wanted the rate further hiked to 142 Jaipal Reddy who reportedly did not agree to the proposal was shunted out in Sunday39s cabinet rejig said the activistpolitician Kejriwal released to the media a quotsecretquot document of the petroleum ministry that said that accepting the Reliance demand would generate for it an additional profit of Rs43000 crore 85 billion quotIn order to pressurize the government RIL substantially reduced its production of natural gasquot a statement from India Against Corruption said quotProduction has been artificially kept low to blackmail the government They are not just hoarding the gas but also forcing various consumers to buy gas from abroadquot When Reliance sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh39s intervention he asked the attorney general to find out if the gas prices should be hiked or not quotWhy did the PM not show similar concern when NTPC was forced to accept a higher gas price from RIL Why is the PM not pulling up Reliance for not producing gas as per their commitment Why did the PM not seek legal opinion when the country39s interests were at stakequot Kejriwal who was flanked by fellow activists Prashant Bhushan and Manish Sisodia demanded that Reliance Industries39 quotblackmailingquot should be immediately stopped The Bharatiya Janata Party BJP asked the prime minister to respond to IAC and explain why Jaipal Reddy was dropped from the petroleum ministry quotIs it any malfunction in the ministry that has persuaded Manmohan Singh to effect this change Or is that Jaipal Reddy was not found a convenient minister Or is this another example of corporate interests taking precedence over national goodquot BJP leader Jaswant Singh asked The activists cited purported conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and Atal Behari Vajpayee39s foster soninlaw Ranjan Bhattacharya to say that Ambani had boasted that the Congress was under his control The conversation makes it clear that Ambani had powerful influence over the Congress and the BJP he claimed quotIn the Niira Radia tapes Ranjan Bhattacharya is heard telling Niira that Mukesh Ambani told him 39Congress to ab apni dukaan hai BJP signed a sweet deal with RIL in 2000 Congress faithfully implemented itquot The Congress predictably rubbished the charges quotHis charges are not worth a comment from any political partyquot Congress spokesperson PC Chacko told IANS Congress general secretary BK Hari Prasad also said quotthe charges were baselessquot Former petroleum and natural gas minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said while it was okay for a company to make a demand the government had not decided on it quotThe government is discussing itquot Aiyar told reporters