Now, Kejriwal fires old ammo at Mukesh Ambani

Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday charged Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and RIL chairman, with getting undue favours from the government over a contract to develop natural gas fields. HT reports.Full text: Kejriwal's allegations | Mukesh Ambani runs govt: Kejriwal

After taking on Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and BJP president Nitin Gadkari, anti-corruption activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday charged Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), with getting undue favours from the government over a contract to develop natural gas fields.

The allegations pertain to RIL's D-6 block in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin, India's largest gas producing field off the eastern coast in Andhra Pradesh, which is being jointly developed by RIL and its partners, Britain's BP and Canadian firm Niko Resources.

Kejriwal and his colleague, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, termed the deal a "classic case of crony capitalism" and said both the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) governments were responsible for RIL getting this contract.

The contract, signed in 2000 by the then NDA government, according to Kejriwal, would rob the national exchequer of revenues to the tune of Rs. 45,000 crore if RIL's demands for a higher price for its gas were met.

The government has not decided yet on a demand by RIL to raise the price of gas from the field to $14.25 per unit from $4.25, the subject of a long-running controversy.

In a brief statement, RIL dismissed the charges as being "devoid of any truth or substance".

Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Manish Sisodiya address a press conference in New Delhi. HT/Sonu Mehta