Taking forward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s narrative that he has been washing the “Congress’s sins”, the BJP on Tuesday presented a detailed chronicle of diamantaire Jatin Mehta’s alleged fraud and escape from India to assert that it was the Congress which helped him “loot the banks and run away”.

Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said the Congress’s “dirty tricks department” is spreading a “web of lies” to link the absconding defaulter to the BJP whereas it was during the UPA’s tenure that he allegedly defrauded the banks of ₹6,712 crore. Addressing a press conference, Puri said it was the Congress that helped Mehta flee after defrauding the banks.

“My main objective is to present the reality about who gave the advance money and who helped Jatin Mehta flee the country. The loans were extended to Mehta between September 2010 and February 2013 by a consortium of banks including Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Central, Bank of India, IDBI, Union Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Standard Chartered. Some loans are of an earlier vintage,” said Puri.

Puri said Mehta acquired the nationality of St Kitts and Nevis, an island nation in the Caribbean, on November 10, 2012. “Everyone knows that the dirty tricks department of the Congress has links in the islands of St Kitts where they tried to forge an account in the name of the son of former PM VP Singh. We now know that it was during the UPA’s tenure that Mehta gave up his Indian passport and acquired the nationality of St Kitts and Nevis.”

Giving details of Mehta’s Indian passport and the passport he holds as a citizen of St Kitts, Puri said Mehta travelled to India several times on these passports till July 25, 2013, the last time he came. Mehta renounced Indian citizenship in the High Commission of India in Singapore in December 2014.

“In December 2016, he was declared a wilful defaulter. Four complaints were filed by the banks before the CBI on September 2014, June2015, June 2016 and November 2016. In May 2016, the ED attached his property. There were six more FIRs against him in 2016. There were fresh complaints in 2017. When were the toxic assets processed? It is clear that it all happened during the 10 years of the UPA. If there was lack of due diligence and connivance, it was entirely during the previous UPA regimes.

“To suggest that the NDA has anything to do with the generation of these toxic loans and the fact that Mehta fled India is a lie as it happened during the UPA, which was seeped in corruption,” the Minister added.

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