By Abdul Bari Masoud
New Delhi: Congress continued its attack on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Government on the Punjab Bank Scam, which is dubbed as India’s biggest bank scam. Congress president Rahul Gandhi Saturday said the PM through his inactions destroyed the financial system of the country.
Talking to reporters after the Congress Steering Committee meeting held here, Rahul Gandhi said the bank scam the Punjab Bank Scam has exposed the ‘Culture of Crony Capitalism’ that has thrived and flourished under the watch of this government. While demanding that guilty will be apprehended, tried and punished in accordance with law, he said repeated frauds will shake the faith of 132 crores people in the banking system.
India’s biggest ‘Bank Scam’ has exposed the complete failure of ‘regulatory mechanism’ and ‘fraud detection ability’ of the entire banking sector and failure of oversight by the RBI and Finance Ministry.
Congress chief alleged that the PM has destroyed the financial system of the country. In reply to a question, he said: “Modi has demonetized the economy, taken money from the people’s pockets and put it into the banking sector and now his friends and cronies are stealing from the banking sector and the Prime Minister is not doing anything”.
He (Modi) spends an hour and a half in explaining to kids how to face examinations, he should explain to the people of India that what is going to be done to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi and what he’s going to do to make sure that the banking system is safe, Gandhi asked.
To another query, Gandhi said that the bulk of transactions started in the year 2015. The first complaint was made in May 2015 and 90 percent of transactions were conducted under the present government.
Look, this Government constantly refuses to accept responsibility. I said in public meetings in Karnataka that the Prime Minister looks at the wicketkeeper and then plays Cricket, he added.
After the meeting, a statement was also issued stating that “ the manner in which thousands of crores of public money was looted with impunity and the complete failure of entire ‘risk management system’ tells its own story of favours extended and protection granted.
“The truth is that ‘Bank Scam’ has exposed the ‘Culture of Crony Capitalism’ that has thrived and flourished under the watch of the Modi Government”.
It alleged that the Modi government did not take any action against any accused since it came to power in May 2014.
“ Over the last 45 months, the BJP Government has shown ‘zero action’ and ‘zero results’ on bringing back black money stashed abroad as promised by the Prime Minister and in taking action against accused in multiple corruption scams that have been exposed. ‘Zero Tolerance for Corruption’ has become ‘Zero Tolerance for Accountability on Corruption”.
It warned that repeated frauds would shake the faith of common man in the banking system.
“Repeated frauds under Modi Government’s watch have given rise to grave concern among the people regarding the security of their money in banks. Nearly Rs.6,000 crore Bank of Baroda fraud was a case in point. What is worse, the swindlers of public funds have left India freely with the BJP Government and its agencies acting as silent bystanders. The great escape of Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and dozens of others accused of banking and other frauds are irrefutable examples of complicity at the highest echelons of power”.
The Committee demanded that the PM must apprise the nation of complete facts about the biggest ‘Bank Scam’ instead of remaining as “usual silent”.
It must be brought out how the entire banking system was duped through ‘Letters of Understanding’ under the watch of Modi Government and why all authorities, including Finance Ministry, FIU, SFIO, ED, CBI, and others were found wanting in preventing the loss?
The PM must also tell the nation how a fraud of this magnitude escaped the eyes of all the auditors and investigators conducting ‘statutory audit’, ‘internal audit’, ‘concurrent audit’ and even the RBI’s own audit? It asked.
The steering committee of the party also expressed deep concern on the jobless growth as also the on-going agrarian crises in the country.
Meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) hit out at both the BJP and the Congress for the Bank scam saying “both parties are the two sides of the same coin.”
AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj told reporters here that Rs 11,500 crore PNB scam started under the previous UPA government in 2011 and has reached its peak in the Modi government’s tenure.
What is intriguing is that both the BJP and Congress are blaming each other so that real issue of how the scam happened gets lost in mudslinging, he said.
He further said both the parties are “heavily dependent on big corporates, who are able to bend rules and fool the law enforcement agencies due to their political clout with the powers that be in the governments of the day and they manage to loot the country’s exchequer and resources without any fear of rule of law”.
Calling the PM Modi as “self-certified Mr clean”, Bharadwaj said the PNB scam, which by most conservative estimates is of at least Rs 11,500 crore and with shocking details emerging every day, it cannot be stated with certainty that the country’s banking system will survive this biggest banking scam in the Indian history.