The Congress and the ruling BJP engaged in a war of words on Twitter over a recent list of loan defaulters released by the RBI. It started with Wayanad MP and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi saying that the Centre hid the list of defaulters from the public as they were friends of the BJP. The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in 13 tweets, questioned this, and said the Congress is trying to mislead people.

Gandhi said he had asked in parliament that the names of the top 50 defaulters be revealed. “Finance Minister refused to reply. Now RBI has put names of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and other BJP friends in the list. This is why they hid the truth from parliament,” he said.

UPA’s ‘phone banking’

Sitharaman asked Gandhi to consult former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before levelling baseless allegations. “Rahul Gandhi, MP (LS), and Randeep Singh Surjewala, spokesperson of Congress, have attempted to mislead people in a brazen manner. Typical to Congress, they resort to sensationalising facts by taking them out of context,” Sitharaman tweeted.

She added that commercial banks had written off ₹1,45,226 crore during the UPA regime. “Upon full provisioning being done, banks write-off the fully-provided NPA but continue to pursue recovery against the borrower. No loan is waived off,” she said.

“Those defaulters, who do not repay despite having the capacity to pay, divert or siphon-off funds, or dispose of secured assets without the bank’s permission are categorised as wilful defaulters. They are those well-connected promoters who benefited from UPA’s ‘Phone banking’,” Sitharaman added.

“Useful to recall the words of Raghuram Rajan: “A large number of bad loans originated in the period 2006-2008...Too many loans were made to well-connected promoters who have a history of defaulting on their loans...Public sector bankers continued financing promoters even while private sector banks were getting out. RBI could have raised more flags about the quality of lending...” Raghuram Rajan (said)... From 2015, PSBs (Public Sector Banks) were asked by the government to check all NPAs >50 crore for wilful default,” Ms Sitharaman said.

Action taken

The Finance Minister claimed that 9,967 recovery suits, 3,515 FIRs, invoking Fugitive Amendment Act in cases are on now. “Total value of attachment and seizures in the cases of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya: ₹18,332.7 crore,” she said.

“Bank-wise details of aggregate funded amount outstanding and amount technically/prudentially written off, pertaining to top fifty wilful defaulters was provided as an annex to the answer to Lok Sabha starred question *305 of Rahul Gandhi on 16.3.2020,” the Finance Minister posted.

“Neither while in power, nor while in the opposition has the Congress shown any commitment or inclination to stop corruption and cronyism,” she said.

Congress: ‘Give answers’

Addressing reporters, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram asked the Centre to give a breakup of the loans given into three — loans given before 2004, between 2004 and 2014 and after 2014. “I asked this in Parliament. There is no answer so far,” he The BJP Government refuses to give the breakup and continues to throw accusations at the previous regimes and the Congress. “Is the Government seriously suggesting that no loans were given after 2014? Or that all the loans given after 2014 are performing loans? What do they take the people of India for?” he said.

Chidambaram said RBI rules can be applied to defaulters and wilful defaulters who are staying in India. “Why do you apply that rule for a wilful defaulter who has fled India and your own Government has declared him as a fugitive? That is the question,” he said and added that a Finance Minister who was silent for the last 37 days suddenly sprung to life and to the defence of the fugitives. “Isn’t that a little surprising and ironical?” he added.

Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said cleaning the banks of people’s money by writing off loans of absconders and fraudsters is not called ‘cleaning the system’. “It’s called weakening the entire bank architecture fiscally and imprudently, if not maliciously,” he said.

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