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Updated: Apr 29, 2020 12:02 IST

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lashed out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for saying the list of wilful defaulters released by the Reserve Bank of India was not presented in Parliament because it contained friends of the ruling party.

She accused Gandhi of “trying to mislead people in a brazen manner”.

“Shri @RahulGandhi MP (LS) and Shri @rssurjewala spokesperson of @INCIndia have attempted to mislead people in a brazen manner. Typical to @INCIndia, they resort to sensationalising facts by taking them out of context. In the following tweets wish to respond to the issues raised,” Sitharaman said in first of her 13 tweets which she posted on Tuesday night.

“Today’s attempt of @INCIndia leaders is to mislead on wilful defaulters, bad loans & write-offs. Between 2009-10 & 2013-14, Scheduled Commercial Banks had written off Rs.145226.00 crores. Wished Shri @RahulGandhi consulted Dr. Manmohan Singh on what this writing-off was about,” she said in another tweet.

Also read: BJP govt waived loans worth Rs 6.66 lakh crore, helped defaulters, says Congress

The finance minister further said that those defaulters who do not repay despite having capacity to pay, divert or siphon-off funds, or dispose of secured assets without bank’s permission are categorised as wilful defaulters. “They are those well connected promoters who benefitted from UPA’s ‘Phone banking’,” Sitharaman said.

She also quoted former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan who had said that a large number of bad loans originated in the period 2006-2008.

Shri @RahulGandhi MP (LS) and Shri @rssurjewala spokesperson of @INCIndia have attempted to mislead people in a brazen manner. Typical to @INCIndia, they resort to sensationalising facts by taking them out of context. In the following tweets wish to respond to the issues raised. — Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) April 28, 2020

Sitharaman also listed the cases of Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya and said that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is pursuing these wilful defaulters.

She ended her long Twitter thread by asking Rahul Gandhi and the Congress to introspect. “Neither while in power, nor while in the opposition has the @INCIndia shown any commitment or inclination to stop corruption & cronyism.”

Gandhi had said on Tuesday that he had asked the government in Parliament the names of the top 50 bank loan defaulters, but the Finance Minister did not answer his question.

Also read: Cong slams Centre, asks how it can afford to waive bad debts worth Rs 68,607 crore

“Now the RBI has given the names of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and many of BJP’s “friends” in the list of bank frauds. That is why this truth was held back from Parliament,” Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

The Congress alleged the government waived loans worth Rs 6.66 lakh crore since 2014 till September 2019.