New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday, accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of “trying to mislead people in a brazen manner”. She lashed out at him for saying the list of wilful defaulters released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was not presented in Parliament because it contained friends of the ruling party.
“Shri @RahulGandhi MP (LS) and Shri @rssurjewala spokesperson of @INCIndia have attempted to mislead people in a brazen manner. Typical to @INCIndia, they resort to sensationalising facts by taking them out of context. In the following tweets wish to respond to the issues raised,” Sitharaman said in the first of her 13 tweets, which she posted on Tuesday night.
“Today’s attempt of @INCIndia leaders is to mislead on wilful defaulters, bad loans & write-offs. Between 2009-10 & 2013-14, Scheduled Commercial Banks had written off Rs.145226.00 crores. Wished Shri @RahulGandhi consulted Dr. Manmohan Singh on what this writing-off was about,” she said in another tweet.
Elaborating on wilful defaulters, the finance minister further said that they are those who do not repay despite having capacity to pay, divert or siphon-off funds, or dispose of secured assets without bank’s permission are categorised as wilful defaulters. “They are those well connected promoters who benefitted from UPA’s ‘Phone banking’,” Sitharaman said.
She also quoted former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan who had said that a large number of bad loans originated in the period 2006-2008. The Narendra Modi-led BJP government is also pursuing wilful defaulters like Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya.
She ended her long Twitter thread by asking Rahul Gandhi and the Congress to introspect. “Neither while in power, nor while in the opposition has the @INCIndia shown any commitment or inclination to stop corruption & cronyism.”
