- Monday, April 28, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Gautam Adani, the richest man in India and Asia and the third richest in the world, has said that his expanding business empire had nothing to do with a particular political leader, rubbishing allegations that he has benefited from ties with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
The 60-year-old billionaire, who has been the world’s biggest wealth gainer in 2022, spoke in an interview with India Today on Wednesday (28) where he said that he is an “easy target” since he also hails from Gujarat, the home state of Modi.
“Prime minister Modi and I are from the same state. That makes me the easy target of such baseless allegations… It is unfortunate that such narratives are being pushed against me,” Adani was quoted as saying.
Adani, the chairman of the Adani Group who briefly became the second richest man in the world by dethroning Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said the success of his business group over the years stemmed from reforms — policy-wise and institutional — that kicked off more than 30 years ago and “not because of any individual leader”.
“These allegations suffer from recency bias, seeing our group’s success through a short-term lens. The fact of the matter is that my professional success is not because of any individual leader but because of the policy and institutional reforms initiated by several leaders and governments during a long period of over three decades,” the tycoon said.
Adani recently acquired a majority stake in New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV), giving way to speculation over the future of India’s last remaining bastions of independent corporate media houses.
NDTV is known to be part of the shrinking news space that is critical of the Modi government.
Adani currently controls 64.71 per cent of the company. He already held 37 per cent following an open offer and acquisition, despite a number of unsuccessful attempts by NDTV to block the takeover, citing regulatory restrictions on moving shares.
Adani, who hails from a middle-class family, fits the government’s need for “national champions” to meet both domestic goals and as a private sector partner in overseas strategic projects, Mihir Sharma, an economist at the Observer Research Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank, told The Independent.
“It isn’t that government policies are shaped by the Adani Group so much as the Adani Group is a willing and able partner in what the government decides are its priorities,” he added.
Since Modi first became the prime minister in 2014, sometimes reportedly using a private aircraft owned by Adani to go for election campaigns, the tycoon’s net worth went up nearly 2,000 per cent to $125 billion, as per Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
The rapid diversification of the businessman’s empire – including bagging multibillion dollar contracts to build ports, highways, and power plants – has come under the critics’ scanner.
Adani also plans developing drones and ammunition that are significant to the Indian government’s mission to boost military-related exports to $5 billion, while reducing costs for expensive imports, the Associated Press reported.
He has also invested in agriculture, which is a huge priority for PM Modi because of the farmers’ votes.
Adani, however, said his entrepreneurial journey started about three decades ago when Rajiv Gandhi, the grandson of India’s first premier Jawaharlal Nehru, was the prime minister. Rajiv Gandhi belonged to the Indian National Congress, which is anti to Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Many will be surprised to know that it all began during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister when he first liberalised the Exim (export-import) policy… But for Rajiv Gandhi, my journey as an entrepreneur would never have taken off,” Adani said in the interview.
He said his career got a second big push in 1991 when the Congress’s PV Narasimha Rao was the prime minister and Manmohan Singh was the finance minister and the duo is widely credited for liberalising the Indian economy.
“The second big push I got was in 1991 when the duo of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh initiated sweeping economic reforms. Just like many other entrepreneurs, I too was a beneficiary of those reforms,” Adani said.
He said former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel gave the “third turning point” of his career. By emphasising on developing coastal areas, he encouraged Adani to start working on the first port project under the Adani Group.
“Until then, all development in Gujarat was only around [National Highway 8] from Mumbai to Delhi via cities like Vapi, Ankleshwar, Bharuch, Silvassa, Vadodara, Surat and Ahmedabad. He [Patel] was a visionary and focused on coastal development – and it was that policy change that took me to Mundra and prompted me to build our first port. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“Gujarat witnessed a massive focus on development” when Modi became its chief minister, Adani said as he went on to appreciate the latter’s role as the prime minister.
“His policies and their implementation went on to not only change the economic landscape of the state… it also allowed industries and employment to take off like never before.”
