Senior Ministers may have rushed to defend the government on the ₹11,400 crore Punjab National Bank-Nirav Modi scam and the escape of Mr. Modi from Indian shores before being called to account for his crimes, but the BJP is struggling to put together a coherent defence in the run up to the Parliament session and in the larger online space.
The perception battle will escalate during second part of the Budget Session due on March 5.
UPA era scam
Government and floor managers of the ruling combine will be holding several meetings to chalk out a strategy, but the broad contours of it are visible.
“This is a UPA era scam, which we are prosecuting swiftly. The FIR was registered on January 31 and look at the kind of action already taken by government agencies,” said a source.
“The arrest of Vipul Ambani is very significant and the fact that the Rotomac scam broke and the owner was not allowed to escape also demonstrates that the government has the right intentions.”
Division on JPC probe
There was some relief for the government as the Opposition appears divided over the demand to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the scam.
The Trinamool Congress said it was opposed to the setting up of the JPC as “eight previous JPCs on various scams had ended up achieving nothing.”
The ruling party MPs will be armed with facts and figures on the action taken by government agencies on the scam. And there will also possibly be a presentation by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Reforms in the sector
“The Finance Ministry has taken some measures like announcing plans to create a centralised system for banks to give funds on the basis of letters of undertaking.
“The government is asking banks to use international bureaus to check the genuineness of the business documents of the firms. Banks should see that apart from checker authoriser and verifier, the SWIFT instructions are cleared by the branch heads also. These are just some of the things we will inform our MPs about,” said the source.
Stress on reforms
The government has been emphasising on the value of the incremental reforms they have initiated, especially in the financial sector.
The first big settlements of the Insolvency and Bankrupt Code (IBC) will start rolling in soon, say senior government officials, and that will demonstrate, according to them, “the unwavering commitment to cleaning up our economic space.”
The BJP will need a blitzkrieg of action to counteract the effects of Nirav Modi’s escape from India under its watch. Party leaders are hoping that its actions so far may be convincing.
