Protests against the Adani Group “taking over” operations of Kenya’s Nairobi airport could turn public sentiment in the African nation against India, the Congress cautioned on Tuesday.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that there have been widespread protests by the workers’ union in Kenya against Gautam Adani-led conglomerate’s proposed takeover of the airport in capital Nairobi.

Ramesh said in a social media that this was a matter of grave concern for India, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “friendship with [Adani Group chairperson Gautam Adani] is now globally well-known”. He added: “The protests can therefore easily convert into anger against India and the Indian government.”

Historically, India’s soft power has been one of its greatest foreign policy strengths, the Opposition party said. “Today, the PM’s collusion with the Adani group has contributed to the diminishing of this strength and unprecedented reversals for India on the global stage,” Ramesh added.

Ramesh was referring to a strike by Kenya’s main aviation workers’ union that was slated to begin on August 19 to protest the government’s proposed agreement with Adani Airport Holdings to develop the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The union, however, postponed the strike so that it could go through documents on the deal that the government presented to it.

The union, while warning of a seven-day strike, had said that the deal would lead to job losses and employment opportunities being taken up by non-Kenyan workers, Reuters reported. It called on the Kenyan government to scrap the deal.

The government had said the airport was not being sold and that no decision had been taken on the deal for renovation of the country’s biggest airport.

Besides about 20,000 Indian citizens, there are nearly 80,000 persons of Indian origin living in Kenya, according to the Indian High Commission in Nairobi.

Adani Airport company operates several airports in India including the ones in Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur and Guwahati.

Similar controversies in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, says Ramesh

Ramesh further said that there had been “similar controversies around Adani projects” in recent years in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka that have “undermined our [India’s] national interest and contributed to bad outcomes” for the country.

The Congress communications in-charge claimed that the Bangladesh government’s contract to purchase electricity from Adani Power’s coal plant in Jharkhand “became a flashpoint” in the agitation that led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina in August.

Adani Power’s power exports to Bangladesh have long been at the centre of controversy, with experts contending that it entails Dhaka buying power at exorbitantly high prices. The Opposition parties in Bangladesh have criticised the arrangement, calling it an “extremely uneven deal signed with an ulterior motive”.

The Adani Group firm sells power to Bangladesh under an agreement signed in 2017 when the Hasina-led Awami League government was in power in Dhaka. The memorandum of understanding between the Adani Group and Dhaka was signed in August 2015, shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Bangladesh.

The Opposition parties in India have questioned whether Modi was directly involved in the deal between the Adani Group and the Hasina government.

Last year, however, the Bangladesh Power Development Board wrote to the company seeking that the agreement be revised.

In August, days after the Hasina government collapsed, the Indian government amended its guidelines on power exports to allow Adani Power to sell electricity contracted to Bangladesh within India in certain situations.

The move is expected to help safeguard Adani Power against possible disruptions caused by the political crisis in the neighbouring country.

The Congress leader said that Adani’s renewable energy projects in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district were also embroiled in a controversy “and were a part” of the widespread protests against the Sri Lankan government in 2022.

In June 2022, a top Sri Lankan official had alleged that Modi had “pressured” Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the island nation’s president at the time, to award a power project to the Adani Group. The official later withdrew his statement and the Sri Lankan authorities denied the allegation.