Cong. questions govt.’s ₹68,607 cr.-loan ‘write-off’

Defaulters include ‘BJP’s friends’: Rahul

29/04/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

Rahul Gandhi

The Congress on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “explain” why his government had “written off” bank loans worth ₹68,607 crore taken by the top 50 defaulters, including Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya, at a time when the country is fighting the coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic.

The party cited a reply of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to an Right to Information (RTI) query and claimed that until March 2020, the government had written off loans worth ₹6.66 lakh crore since 2014.

‘Truth held back’

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in a tweet, said though the government had refused to answer him in Parliament, the RBI has now put out the list, which includes names of BJP’s “friends”.

“I asked a straight question in Parliament — state the names of the 50 top bank loan defaulters in the country. The Finance Minister refused to answer the question. Now the RBI has given the names of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and many of BJP’s ‘friends’ in the list of bank frauds. That is why this truth was held back from Parliament,” Mr. Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.

Addressing an online press conference, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, “This is a classic case of promoting the ‘dupe, deceive and depart’ policy of the Modi government, which can no longer be accepted and the Prime Minister has to answer.”

Mr. Surjewala said while the entire country is fighting the coronavirus, the Centre doesn’t have money to pay to States but still decided write off ₹68,307 crore of defaulters.

“This reflects the misconceived priorities and dishonest intentions of the Modi government,” he said.