New Delhi: The political blame game over the multi-crore PNB scam intensified on Saturday with Congress president Rahul Gandhi linking it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation decision and Union defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman labelling the scam as the “original sin” of the Congress. Mr Gandhi said the PNB scam started with the note ban on November 8, 2016 when Mr Modi took money from people’s pockets and put it into the banking sector before allowing his cronies to steal it from banks.
While Mr Gandhi questioned the PM’s silence over the issue at a time “when he can find time to speak for one-and-half hours to teach children how take their board exams”, Ms Sitharaman said that Mr Gandhi and party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s famly were linked to Nirav Modi and assured that the government will not spare anyone involved in the fraud.
“Firestar Diamond International Pvt Ltd. is one of the companies of Nirav Modi. They have acquired it from Advait Holdings and one of the shareholders of it, since 2002, is Anita Singhvi. (Mr Singhvi’s wife). The property of Advait Holdings, whose directors are wife and son of the Congress leader, is rented to Nirav Modi’s jewellery company in Mumbai,” said Ms Sitharaman. She said instead of asking the government, it is the Congress and its leaders who needs to answer on many issues related with the fraud. Mr Singhvi hit back saying that the ruling party and the NDA government’s “cheap sense of politics” has reached “ludicrous and ridiculous proportions” and threatened to file a defamation case against the Union minister. Celebrity diamantaire Nirav Modi has been accused by the PNB of swindling '11,400 crore.
The scale of the fraud seems to be getting bigger with the I-T department saying that Indian banks could take a hit of at least '17,600 crore from loans and corporate guarantees provided to PNB.
Blaming the earlier UPA regime for messing up the banking sector, Mr Sitharaman said that the case reflects Congress “modus operandi” and claimed that the party and its “eminent leaders” are somehow associated with scams.
Citing the example of whistleblower and former Allahabad Bank director Dinesh Dubey, who in 2013 was against granting a loan to Nirav Modi’s maternal uncle Mehul Choksi but was allegedly asked to resign, Ms Sitharaman recalled an incident involving a former director of the SBI in the 1970s who was sacked by the then government and claim that even the current PNB case shows Congress’ modus operandi.
Dinesh Dubey, former government nominated director on the Allahabad Bank board, claimed that he had voiced dissent in 2013 on a proposal to give a fresh loan of '50 crore to Choksi’s firm Gitanjali Gems till it returned earlier loans of '1,500 cr. He said he was forced to resign later for raising the issue.
Ms Sitharaman also repeated her party’s charge Rahul Gandhi had participated in a promotional even of Nirav Modi’s firm in 2013, adding that this happened despite the fact that the company had been barred from doing business at the stock exchange for six months.
Interestingly, the FIR lodged by CBI on January 31, 2018, about the fraud refers to just eight PNB Letters of Undertaking (LoUs), all of which were issued to Nirav Modi after 2017, during the NDA’s regime.
Replying to a question on why most of the LoUs used by Nirav Modi were renewed in 2017, Ms Sitharaman said that the main reason was that they were not in the core banking system and it was only after the Modi government put in the self-correcting measures in the system that the matter got flagged.
Firing back at the government during a party meeting, Mr Gandhi said, “The Prime Minister through his actions has destroyed the financial system. He has taken money from people’s pockets and put it into the banking sector. And now his friends and cronies are stealing it from the banking sector.”
“The PM should come out and say what has happened (on Nirav Modi) and why? And what was he doing about it?” he asked.
He linked the scam to the Modi government’s decision to demonetise '500 and '1,000 notes and said that the PNB scam started on November 8, 2016.
Mr Gandhi said that such a big scam could not have taken place without the knowledge or protection of people within the government. The PM is “answerable to the nation as 90 per cent of the fraudulent transactions took place during his tenure”, he said.
Mr Singhvi denied Ms Sitharaman’s allegation and claimed that Advait Holdings owns a commercial property in Mumbai’s Parel area which was rented by Nirav Modi’s company many years ago and neither the holdings nor his family has any interest involving Nirav Modi or the company.
“Last August, the company gave notice to quit tenancy and vacated the Parel Kamla Mills premises in December 2017... None of us have anything to do even remotely with Gitanjali company, Firestar or any other business of Nirav Modi,” said the senior Congress leader.
Threatening civil and criminal defamation against Ms Sitharaman and her colleagues for making “ill-considered, ignorant and patently false allegations,” Mr Singhvi said, “sensationalism, ignorance and falsehood has exceeded all limits in this irresponsible charge”.
The Shiv Sena joined the Oppostion party in attacked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the PNB scam and alleged that Nirav Modi, who is at the centre of the scandal, had been a “partner” of the BJP and helped it collect funds for elections.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led party, a BJP ally, said Mr Modi’s promise of putting an end to corruption in the country, highlighted through his slogan “na khaunga, na khane dunga”, was in tatters after the alleged fraudulent transactions of Rs 11,400 crore came to light.
