Speak up, says Rahul as Oppn keeps up heat
Congress accuses govt of allowing another person to flee country after cheating banks, Mayawati says Centre caught napping
Congress president Rahul Gandhi asked PM Modi to speak up on the scam and not behave like “guilty”, while the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee linked it to the note ban.
NEWDELHI/LUCKNOW: The Opposition kept up the heat on the government on Sunday, asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “speak up” on the ₹11,400 crore Punjab National Bank fraud involving billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi questioned Modi’s silence on one of the biggest banking scandals in the country. “PM Modi tells kids how to pass exams for 2 hrs, but won’t speak for 2 mins on the 22,000Cr banking scam. Mr Jaitley is in hiding. Stop behaving as if you’re guilty! Speak up,” the Congress leader tweeted on Sunday. He was referring to Modi holding an interaction with students ahead of annual examinations.
The Congress said the scam was much bigger than what was being said and the government had allowed yet another person to flee the country after cheating banks.
Gandhi on Saturday even drew a link with demonetisation, saying the fraud started when the prime minister banned ₹1,000 and ₹500 notes and “when he took out all public money and put it into the banking system”.
A day later, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, too, said the same. “Big money laundering happened during Demo. Key bank officials were changed. Who are these people put in? There are more banks involved. The full truth must come out,” she tweeted. In a surprise decision, the government had in November 2016 banned ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes in a bid to curb black money and fake currency.
Banerjee has asked senior party leaders to launch a campaign in the state to tell people that the Centre was influencing banks to deprive farmers and self-help groups of small loans, while allowing the super-rich to launder money. “We will tell people that this is how Narendra Modi is repaying his debts to industrialists who spent crores in 2014 to get him in power,” state agriculture marketing minister Tapan Dasgupta said.
Hitting back at the West Bengal chief minister, BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha accused Banerjee of spreading lies to protect the Congress. “The scam took place in the UPA regime and the government then let it happen. The UPA’S involvement has become evident from Allahabad Bank’s former director Dinesh Dubey’s statement,” he said.
A former independent director of Allahabad Bank, Dubey said loans were granted to Choksi’s Gitanjali Gems despite his objections. He also said he was pressured into quitting the board.
Sinha said Banerjee had no right to speak on corruption because several of her party’s top leaders were accused in the Saradha chit fund scam.
Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on Saturday hit out at the Congress-led UPA, saying, “The original sin was committed in 2011 with help of delinquent officials. Letters of undertaking with currency of 90 days were not put into the core banking system; they were with the delinquent officer who kept files under his control.”
Joining the opposition attack, BSP chief Mayawati on Sunday raised questions over Modi’s ‘na khaoonga, na khane doonga’ promise, claiming that the Centre slept while a mega bank fraud took place. “A ₹20,000 crore bank scam took place, while the government was caught napping. What kind of a public welfare government is this?” Mayawati said. Lashing out at the BJP, she said all talk about bringing black money stashed abroad and depositing ₹15 lakh in the accounts of the poor was empty rhetoric.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal also accused the Centre of helping Nirav Modi flee the country. “How can it be possible that Vijay Mallya ran away with ₹9,000 crore and Nirav Modi escaped with ₹11,000 crore. This clearly indicates that the top leadership of the Centre is directly involved in it,” Kejriwal said.