On the eve of the Winter Session of Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday accused the Congress of planning strategies to “block” official business and legislation in Parliament and held the party responsible for damaging the national economy both in power and in Opposition.
Jaitley hit out at the Congress over its “paucity of issues” as he questioned why a public sector bank giving credit to a particular business house had become a matter for public debate. He was apparently referring to SBI’s MoU with Adani Group for providing a loan of $1 billion (over Rs6,000 crore) to Adani Mining, the Australian subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, for its mining project in Queensland.
“Since when has the issue of a creditor’s willingness to give debt to a borrower become an issue of public debateIJ It entirely depends upon the debtor-creditor relationship and the creditworthiness of the debtor... This shows a paucity of issues with the Congress,” he said in his latest Facebook post.
Keeping up his attack on the Congress, the Finance Minister said that without reading the relevant notifications, the party had felt that Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) would be a boon for black money. “The notification of the KVP clearly shows (that) identity disclosure at the time of purchase of all KVPs is necessary. If the KVP is purchased for more than Rs50,000, PAN number has also to be given... It appears that the Congress had given its reaction without reading the notification,” he said.
Accusing the Congress of plotting to sabotage the functioning of Parliament and block key legislation, Jaitley said, “The party (Congress) is planning how to block official business and legislation in Parliament. The Congress had damaged the national economy while in power and wants to pursue the same destructive direction while in Opposition.”
Jaitley also regretted West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s accusation that the BJP was involved in the Burdwan blast.“The NIA has arrested several people who have engineered the blast. They are enemies of the State. The West Bengal Police or the other intelligence agencies have no substantive material to establish that the blast was stage-managedIJ If there is no such material, why has Didi chosen to allege that the blast was stage-managedIJ Such allegations clearly help the actual culprits. This is neither responsible nor nationalistic,” he said.
However, the Finance Minister heaped praise on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well his Cabinet colleagues. “The last week was a full eventful week. The Prime Minister returned after a highly successful visit of three nations. India’s status in the Comity of Nations appears to have been enhanced. Both India and our Prime Minister were at the centre stage in the G-20 meet at Brisbane. What better recognition should there be of India’s enhanced stature than President Obama agreeing to be the Chief Guest of India at our Republic Day Parade,” Jaitley said.
While Jaitley praised Defence Minister Manohar Parikar for taking ahead the NDA’s agenda forward of expediting Defence procurement, he also stated that Power Minister Piyush Goel, through various Coal and Power sector reforms, has given a new direction to the Ministry where coal allocation and power generation stagnated due to the UPA’s despotic coal allocation policy. He also had good words for his colleague Nirmala Sitharaman who succeeded in persuading the USA to correct the imperfection in the Bali Text on trade facilitations.