Reliance favourite group of BJP and Congress, Kejriwal says

Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan of India Against Corruption launched a blistering attack on the Congress and BJP on Wednesday for allegedly promoting the business interests of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd. They claimed that the UPA and NDA regimes had conspired to organize benefits worth thousands of crores for the company at the public exchequer's expense. Speaking against the backdrop of the uproar over Jaipal Reddy's removal from the petroleum ministry, allegedly at Reliance's instance, Bhushan and Kejriwal alleged that the same company had earlier got Mani Shankar Aiyar also turfed out from the ministry. They said it was Ambani who was running the government, not Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. They also claimed that Reddy had opposed Reliance's demand for revision of price of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin field, and was trying to hold them to account for hoarding gas. While the Congress and BJP were savaged and their alleged favours to Reliance were cited as examples of their collusion over corruption, the industry heavyweight was also scorched in what was clearly the first instance of its kind in recent times. Apart from being mentioned as a glaring example of crony capitalism, the activists accused Reliance of hoarding gas from the KG basin field in order to profit at people's expense and of seeking to blackmail the government. The Congress was quick to rebuff the allegations as "baseless" and also questioned India Against Corruption's source of funding. AICC general secretary B K Hariprasad said, "Nowadays, it is fashionable of IAC to make accusations. But where are you getting your funds from? If Mukesh Ambani is running the government, then IAC is run by people from abroad." He also accused Kejriwal of being in league with BJP. "Woh tuchhe jamakhoron ki tarah kaam kar rahen hain (they are behaving like petty hoarders)," declared Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday while accusing Reliance of hoarding gas. Bhushan and Kejriwal said Reliance had deliberately scaled down production of gas to pressure the government into raising price prematurely, adding that while Reliance sought and got a four-fold raise in capital expenditure on the KG gas field, only 13 of the 31 gas wells were in production. The activists also played an audio clip from the infamous Niira Radia tapes, with former PM A B Vajpayee's foster son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya telling the ex-corporate lobbyist, "Mukeshbhai told me, Congress to apni dukaan hai". Reliance forcefully denied the charges and accused India Against Corruption of being a proxy of vested interests. "Irresponsible allegations made by the IAC at the behest of vested interests without basic understanding of complexities of a project of this nature do not merit a response," an RIL statement said. "The deep water exploration project in the KG-D6 basin has deployed the best technical resources and has been recognized by the oil and gas industry as one of the very best in its class. The project has added great economic value to the country and by all accounts is a project of which India can be justly proud," the company claimed. The PM also came in for rough treatment with the activist duo saying he was liable to be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly abusing his position to help corporate interests — from Reliance to companies engaged in Coalgate and 2G scam — profit at the cost of the public exchequer. "He signs on to every file, be it of Coalgate or spectrum scam. He has been ensnared by Congress," Kejriwal said. The press conference - the third of a series of exposes promised by the activists -- reinforced their status as a stakeholder in public policy debates, expanding the field beyond the government and business. The activists broke down esoteric concepts of mmbtus (million metric British thermal units) and mmscmd (million metric standard cubic meters per day) into the mundane tangible concern of price of power, fertilizer and inflation. Expanding the arena in which the gas pricing is to be settled, the activists called upon people to rise in revolt against the loot of public money, and exhorted them to maintain a hawk-eyed vigil on the moves of Reddy's successor in petroleum ministry, Veerappa Moily. "File thousands of RTIs to see what this man does regarding the demands of Reliance," Kejriwal said. The activists also backed up their serious charges by releasing government documents which showed that Reddy had opposed Reliance's demand for a hike in gas price from $4.2 per unit to $14.2 per unit. Another document concerned a penalty that Reddy imposed on the energy major for allegedly failing to meet gas production target, and it was cited by the activists to substantiate the charge that Reliance had deliberately scaled down production to conserve gas and sell it at a higher rate later. They also said that Aiyar had opposed Reliance's demand for an increase in the capital expenditure and paid the price for that. They said the contract with Reliance, signed under the NDA, was essentially a sweetheart deal, and was inherently loaded in favour of the company. "It allowed the company to go on increasing its profit by showing its investment: something that the CAG identified as goldplating." They claimed UPA allowed Reliance to build on its initial success by seeking a revision of the gas price after it had signed a contract for supplying gas for $2.34 for 17 years beginning 2004. They said it was Pranab Mukherjee who, as the head of an empowered group of ministers, acquiesced to Reliance's pitch for rate revision to $4.2 a unit, immediately handing the company undue benefit of Rs 8,000 crore. Accusing the PM of favouring the company, Bhushan and Kejriwal said Singh decided to take legal opinion from the attorney general after Reddy had blocked Reliance's demand for revision of price before 2014 when it is due. "Why this sympathy for Reliance? Why did not the same prime minister approach the attorney general for an opinion when Reliance reneged on its contract on production or cost escalation? Why don't they take the opinion of the attorney general when Reliance starts litigation against the public sector NTPC?" They also took objection to Reliance selling 30% stake in 21 of the 29 exploration blocks, including KG-D6 blocks to British Petroleum in 2011 at $7.2 billion when the natural wealth belonged to people of India and not a private company. Bhushan said the encroaching crony capitalism posed a threat to democracy as it had suborned the government and the political class.