The Congress party’s Kerala unit has alleged financial irregularities in India’s electric mobility sector, raising questions about the government’s Electric Vehicle (EV) policies and the misuse of public funds.

At the centre of the controversy is BluSmart Mobility, a ride-hailing service that operates a fleet of nearly 8,000 electric cars across Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru.

Founded in 2019, by Anmol Singh Jaggi, Puneet Singh Jaggi, and Punit K. Goyal, BluSmart runs a salaried driver model, unlike aggregators such as Uber and Ola.

The company, headquartered in Ahmedabad, claims to be building a cleaner, greener alternative to fossil-fuel-powered transportation. But in a series of tweets, INC Kerala has alleged that BluSmart’s growth has been bankrolled by public money and then the funds were diverted for personal gain.

“How can a small startup company run a fleet of 8000 cars just like that?” the Congress asked.

The answer, they claimed, lies in a network of companies controlled by the Jaggi brothers, all based in Ahmedabad.

One of them, Gensol Engineering Limited, is the leasing company that supplied electric vehicles to BluSmart.

The tweets allege Gensol received Rs 977 crore in loans from two government-backed entities — Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) and Power Finance Corporation (PFC).

The Congress alleged Rs 645 crore of this was debt financing from the Power Finance Corporation. “All of this huge pile of money has evaporated into thin air,” they alleged.

IREDA, founded in 1987, and under the ministry of new and renewable energy, is established as a non-banking financial institution that extends financial assistance for setting up projects relating to new and renewable sources of energy. PFC, established in 1986, and under the ministry of power, is engaged in infrastructure finance activities.

Rs 664 crore, out of the Rs 977 crore, was earmarked for the purchase of 6,400 EVs.

But Gensol procured 4,704 cars, costing Rs 567.73 crore — an average of Rs 12.07 lakh per vehicle.

About Rs 97 crore unspent funds remained with Gensol.

Congress Kerala’s thread links the missing funds to luxury property acquisitions by the promoters. “Both brothers bought two apartments in The Camellias in DLF Gurgaon, which cost nearly 100 crore for a 7400 sq.ft unit. It is arguably India’s most expensive luxury real estate project. How simple, right? The funds for reducing pollution and carbon emissions were diverted to own the most luxury real estate in India.”

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) did an investigation based on a complaint and issued an interim order on April 15 against Gensol Engineering Limited and its promoters. Sebi found that nearly Rs 262 crore is missing from the loans. Sebi claimed Gensol was also required to provide an additional 20 per cent equity contribution and by that calculation, Rs 262.13 crore remains unaccounted.

In a response to the Bombay Stock Exchange on April 16, Gensol acknowledged Sebi's interim order. The company said they will cooperate with Sebi’s forensic audit. “The company is committed to providing the auditor with complete access to records and information to ensure a transparent and comprehensive audit process.” Gensol added that Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi have been restrained from holding the position of a director or a key managerial personnel in Gensol, until further orders.

The Congress thread claimed that while GST and road tax exemptions are visible on paper, each car received subsidies of at least Rs 6 lakh — this, on top of the Rs 977 crore in loans, forms the basis of what is being termed a “scam.”

Congress further alleged that the Jaggis routed another Rs 5 crore of the funds back into another company owned by them. “A big chunk was redirected to their family members including their mother and spouses. 50 lakhs was used to invest in Ashneer Grover’s startup Third Unicorn Pvt. Ltd.”

The tweets also accuse the promoters of stock manipulation. “They also indulged in stock manipulation of Gensol, by filing all kinds of wrong things saying that they received orders for 30,000 electric cars which they are going to manufacture in their plant in Pune. And when NSE officials visited the place, they found no cars were being manufactured and the facility had only 3 employees.”

The electric cars in BluSmart’s fleet include models like Mahindra e-Verito, Tata e-Tigor, Tata Xpres-T EV, Hyundai Kona Electric, MG ZS Electric, and Citroen e-C3.

BluSmart, separate from Gensol, has also raised Rs 4,133 crore from venture capital investors such as BP Ventures and Green Frontier Capital.

Among those who have invested in the project is former Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The party also criticised the broader subsidy framework for EVs. “Remember, we are giving more than 5 Cr of tax subsidy to a Rolls Royce Electric car while @nsitharaman is taxing popcorn and your apartment maintenance at 18%,” one of the tweets reads.

It ends with a comment on the political ecosystem around such schemes: “Bhakts and the Sangh ecosystem can keep defending this scam forever, after all, the rewards ranging from the Rs 2 per social media abuse to the luxury perks the influencers receive, come from such corrupt money.”