Lankan Official Retracts "Pressure From Modi" Claim Over Project Contract

The government has not commented on the now-retracted allegation by the chief of Sri Lanka's electricity authority.

In a huge political controversy in Sri Lanka over an energy project contract, an allegation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressured President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to award the project to Gautam Adani's group has been retracted by the senior official who made the claim and has also been strongly denied by President Rajapaksa.

The government has not commented on the now-retracted allegation by the chief of Sri Lanka's electricity authority.

The allegations involve a 500-megawatt renewable energy project Sri Lanka's Mannar district. On Friday, MMC Ferdinando, the Chairman of Sri Lanka's Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), told a parliamentary panel that President Rajapaksa had told him that PM Modi had pressured him to give the wind power project directly to the Adani Group.

A video posted on Twitter appeared to show Mr Ferdinando making the claim at an open hearing of the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE). According to newspaper reports, Mr Ferdinando told the panel that Mr Rajapaksa "told me that he was under pressure from Modi".