Reacting to the bribery charges against former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for the first time, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said Jagan has “damaged the brand image” of the state.

Addressing the assembly on Friday, November 22, CM Naidu said the government will take further action after gathering information on the alleged corruption in the solar power deal between the previous YSRCP government and Gautam Adani. However, Naidu did not take Jagan’s name.

“Every government should be accountable to the people. Repetition of such crimes can only be prevented by bringing those who committed them to justice. The charge sheet (US prosecution) is with the government (Andhra Pradesh) and details are being verified. Necessary action will to be taken, and the same will be brought to the notice of Parliament in due course,” said CM Naidu.

The US Attorney’s Office has charged Jagan and Gautam Adani with being involved in bribery. The charges state that Gautam Adani personally met Jagan and offered Rs 1,750 crore in exchange for getting the state electricity distribution company to agree to buy seven gigawatts of power from the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a public company.

Read:

SECI had awarded tenders to Adani Group and Azure Power in 2019 and 2020, to supply 12 gigawatts of solar generated electricity at a specified price. SECI, in turn, needed to find state power companies that would be willing to buy the electricity at that price. According to US investigators, after SECI was unable to find buyers for the power due to high prices, Adani and Azure had conspired to offer bribes to government officials.

In August 2021, Gautam Adani allegedly met then Chief Minister Jagan personally about the fact that Andhra Pradesh had not entered into a Power Supply Agreement (PSA) with SECI and promised the “incentives” needed to get Andhra Pradesh to do so, according to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.