The Congress on Saturday reiterated its accusation that the Narendra Modi government had written off ₹5.5 lakh crore in loans of its “blue-eyed boys” and said it was the worst example of crony capitalism.
Citing a news report, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi accused the government of “favouritism“.
“Crony capitalism’s worst example is this. In the last 10 years, the total write off was ₹7 lakh crore. Out of this ₹5.5 lakh crore has been written off under Modiji. This means 80% write offs have happened during the Modi government’s tenure.
“The excuse given frequently is that writing off loan in the books does not mean that the loan is waived. But, that is a very illusory, a very tactical argument. The reality is that when a bank writes off a loan, the incentive to recover is virtually nil,” he said.
‘Reveal names’
Alleging that the Modi government rested on the twin pillars of “cronyism and loot”, Mr. Singhvi challenged the government to reveal the names of those whose loans have been written off.
“This is nothing but one-sided favouritism of your blue-eyed boys, the blue-eyed corporate and I call upon the government to reveal the names of those in respect of whom ₹5.5 lakh crore has been written off. Please do not throw some rule book or guidelines at us.
“I can tell you that there is no chance of the names being revealed because that will reveal the true extent of the Modi government’s crony capitalism,” he said.
Mr. Singhvi then went on to give a breakup of the write offs, claiming that out of the loans written off by the Modi government, ₹1.56 lakh crore has been written off in the last one year alone, “just as elections are approaching”.