A social media post featuring an image of former BJP MP Dr. Subramanian Swamy claims that he made a statement regarding Adani’s Mumbai Airport acquisition. The post alleges that Swamy said, “The truth is that Adani did not buy these 74% shares from the Indian government but bought 74% from multiple foreign partners which Congress had sold in 2006!”. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Subramanian Swamy stating that Adani did not acquire the 74% shares of Mumbai Airport from the Indian government, but instead purchased them from multiple foreign partners who Congress sold in 2006.
Fact: These statements were not made by Dr Subramanian Swamy. In fact, Swami accused Adani of not repaying the loans and using nepotism to obtain stake in Mumbai Airport. Also, Adani Group has 74% stake in Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, post the stake purchase transaction, with 50.5% being bought from GVK Group and 23.5% Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), and Bidvest Group. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
During our investigation, we found that the same post was shared in 2021 when Adani Group acquired a 74% stake in Mumbai International Airport Limited. However, the statements were not attributed to Dr Subramanian Swamy at that time. We also searched through Swamy’s various social media accounts and also checked multiple media reports, but we could not find any evidence of him making the statement referred to in the social media post. However, during the process of Adani’s acquisition of Mumbai Airport from the GVK group in 2021, Swamy made allegations that Adani had not repaid the loans and had used nepotism to secure the Mumbai airport deal.
Recently, during a Parliament speech on 07 February 2023, Rahul Gandhi made a series accusations against the Adani Group, stating that they were handed control of the Mumbai airport after it was taken away from the GVK. Dr Swami in an interview on 29 January 2023, while discussing the Hindenburg report on the Adani Group, once again accused Adani of using investigative agencies to pressure the GVK group into giving up control of the Mumbai Airport. However, the GVK group denied “extraneous pressure” from anyone to sell the Mumbai airport.
Coming to Adani’s Mumbai Airport acquisition, as per the media reports, Adani Group has a 74% stake in Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, post the stake purchase transaction, with 50.5% being bought from GVK Group and 23.5% from minority partners including Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), and Bidvest Group.
To sum it up, there is no conclusive evidence to support the assertion that Subramanian Swamy made any statements regarding the Adani Group and the Congress Party in relation to the Mumbai airport deal.
