The Finance Minister's harsh response to the loan waiver issue gave a scathing reply to the Congress

New delhi date. Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has taken a hard line on Congress questions on loan waiver. He took a class of Congress and Rahul Gandhi by tweeting in stages. He said that between 2009 and 2014, Rs 1.45 lakh crore was allowed to go to Mandwal (right off). "I wish Rahul Gandhi had consulted Manmohan Singh on bank defaulters and loan waivers," he said.

Allegations were made by Congress

In fact, the Congress had alleged that the Modi government had written off loans worth Rs 68,607 crore and that those whose loans had been forgiven included the names of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya. Rahul Gandhi wrote in his tweet, "When I asked the names of 50 big bank thieves in Parliament, the Finance Minister did not answer and now the RBI has put BJP's friends including Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi on the list of bank thieves."

Finance Minister's reply

Nirmala Sitharaman said that bankwise details of willful defaulters above Rs 5 crore were tabled in Parliament during March this year. It also includes the names of those whose money is due and who have been written off. The Congress leader is misleading the country on the issue of defaulters. He further said that the RBI had made a four-year provision for NPAs, the NPAs were written off only after full provisioning of the write-offs but efforts were being made for recovery and no debt was forgiven.

Defining the term defaulter, Sitharaman said that those who are not repaying the loan are defaulters. He who sells his property without the permission of the bank is a defaulter. He later accused the Congress of being the promoters associated with the UPA's phone banking. Referring to former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, the Finance Minister said that between 2006 and 2008, bad loans were given to those with a high default history and high reach. However, the public sector bank continued to lend to them. In fact, private sector banks were emerging from such a situation and the RBI could have alerted on the quality of lending at that time.

Giving details of Modi, Choksi and Mallya's cases, he said that property worth Rs 18,332.7 crore has been attached or seized in these three cases. At the same time, the process of declaring Mehul Choksi a fugitive is underway while Mallya has been declared a fugitive. He further sought to prove that the Modi government was cracking down on willful defaulters by filing FIRs against 3,515 people pursuing willful defaulters and prosecuting 9,967 cases for recovery.