Yechury demands high-level probe into bank scam

‘BJP is practising the worst form of crony capitalism’

Karnataka , Mangaluru : 02/01/2018 : General secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury during the 22ndKarnataka convention of CPI (M) in Moodbidri, in Dakshina Kannada on January 02, 2018. PHOTO: H_S_MANJUNATH

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has urged the Centre to institute a high-level inquiry into the multi-crore bank scam involving Nirav Modi, a diamond trader, who is absconding.

Speaking to media persons on the sidelines of the party’s four-day State conference here on Monday, he accused the BJP government of practising the worst form of ‘crony capitalism’ benefiting certain corporates, and corruption.

It was the BJP which promised to deliver corruption-free governance, but the government itself was acting like a middleman to extend loans to industrialists from nationalised banks. But, after taking huge sums of loans, borrowers vanished. Earlier, Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya fled from the country and now it was the turn of Nirav Modi, Mr. Yechury said.

During the last four years of the BJP government, non-performing assets, created by loans taken by corporates, had increased three-fold. He said bad loans, including the interest accrued, stood at ₹11 lakh crore. While corporates were provided with loans, farmers’ demands for small loans were denied.

During its first three years, the BJP government admitted that nearly ₹3 lakh crore of loans taken by corporates were waived. The CPI(M) demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicise the names of the corporates for whom loans were waived and the names of industrialists who accompanied him during foreign trips.

Earlier, he said with wrong policies, the RSS-led BJP government and communal forces had been mounting attacks on people. Communal polarisation was completely destroying unity and social harmony.

The gap between the rich and the poor in the country was widening, and simultaneously the government was moving ahead to privatise the entire public sector. “They have opened up all avenues of our economy to foreign capital to create conditions for maximising profits at the expense of the people of the country. As a result, 1% of the people have garnered 73% of the total wealth generated in the country in 2017,” he said.

T.K. Rangarajan, party MP, K. Kanagaraj, State executive council member, and K.S. Arjunan, district secretary, were present.