4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: May 16, 2026 05:02 AM IST
Led by Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, the Congress has targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a news report saying the US Justice Department is set to drop charges against industrialist Gautam Adani. The main opposition party said the “compromised PM” didn’t sign a trade deal, but a “deal” to get Adani off the hook.
Gandhi and the Congress have been on the offensive against Adani over the case in which US prosecutors indicted Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani, and six others in November 2024.
The New York Times has reported that the US Department of Justice is set to drop charges against Adani, who is accused of fraud. “The decision came after a meeting in which a lawyer for the billionaire, Gautam Adani, made an unusual offer, according to people familiar with the matter,” reads the report.
“The people with knowledge of Mr. Adani’s case said that prosecutors were not pulling back as a political favor to Mr. Adani, who has a close relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. Instead, one of them said, a dismissal would reflect the Trump administration’s broader retreat from foreign bribery cases and its reluctance to act as a global corporate police force,” read the news report. “Even if the criminal charges against Mr. Adani are dismissed, he is still expected to incur financial penalties, the people with knowledge of the case said,” it added.
In a post on X, Rahul Gandhi said, “Compromised PM didn’t sign a trade deal, he did a deal for Adani’s release.”
Senior Congress leader and communication department in-charge Jairam Ramesh said it has now become clear why the Prime Minister accepted the “extremely disappointing” and “one-sided” trade pact. “It has also become evident why, on May 10, 2025, he suddenly halted Operation Sindoor, bowing to President Trump’s threats instead of prioritising national interests under their pressure. Reports indicate that the Trump administration is now preparing to withdraw all corruption-related allegations against Modani. How much more compromise will the Prime Minister make in the end?” asked Ramesh.
Congress’s mounting attack
In November 2024, the indictment of Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani by prosecutors in the US for allegedly offering Rs 2,029 crore in bribes to Indian government officials had triggered a political firestorm, with Rahul Gandhi demanding his immediate arrest and alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “protecting” him.
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The US court filing that accused Gautam Adani, his nephew and six others of bribery showed that approximately Rs 1,750 crore (around $228 million) of “corrupt payment” was offered to “Foreign Official #1” — an unnamed high-ranking Andhra Pradesh government official — in exchange for the official facilitating the state’s distribution companies agreeing to purchase seven gigawatts of solar power from Solar Energy Corporation of India under the manufacturing linked project.
Gandhi and the Congress have been consistently alleging that Modi was “compromised” owing to the case against Adani in the US and the Epstein files. The matter has reached the Parliament on multiple occasions and has also featured in Rahul Gandhi’s speeches in poll-bound states. The principal opposition party has also alleged that the Indian government halted Operation Sindoor owing to pressure from the US government.
The Congress has also been critical of the India-US trade deal, which is yet to be signed, alleging that the “one-sided deal” was agreed to under pressure from the Trump administration and that it would result in huge losses for Indian farmers and other domestic sectors owing to the high tariffs. The reason, as per the Congress, for such a deal was “pressure” from the US, and Trump holding leverage over Modi and the Indian government because of the Adani case and Epstein files.
