Row after Nirmala’s SBI chief audio clip

NEW DELHI: Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday defended finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman after the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation on Friday condemned her purported “unsavoury attack” on State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar, referring to an audio clip that was being shared on social media.

In a series of tweets, Sarma said it appeared that the bank association had not understood the context. He said “due to procedural lapses and lack of alertness” of local banking officials, a sizeable section of about 8 lakh marginalised tea garden workers were being deprived of their rightful dues as they could not withdraw their own money from their accounts.

Referring to the audio clip,

AIOBC general secretary Soumya Datta said the finance minister came down heavily on Kumar, accusing him of poor credit uptick, during an outreach programme in late February. “She launched a vituperative verbal tirade at Rajnish Kumar and accused him of being responsible for all the failures of extending loans, especially to tea garden workers in Assam,” his statement said. Datta said in the statement that Sithraraman branded SBI as a “heartless bank” and humiliated Kumar.

It appears that on February 27, 2020, while attending the SBI financial inclusion outreach programme at Guwahati, Sitharaman pulled up the SBI chief in presence of the finance minister of Assam and other officials, the statement said. Kumar and Datta did not respond to HT’s queries. A Union finance ministry official declined comments.