PM attacks Manmohan Singh government on bank NPAs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday attacked his predecessor Manmohan Singh and the UPA government saying some of its "people" had pressurised banks to lend to some industrialists, which he described as the "biggest scam", bigger than 2G, coal and Commonwealth Games scams.

Addressing the Ficci annual general meeting, he questioned industry bodies like Ficci as to what were they doing when it was known that things were going wrong in the financial institutions and when the UPA government gave the biggest liability to the NDA government in the form of bad loans.

"It was the biggest scam of the UPA government. Commonwealth, 2G, coal, bigger scandal than all these. It was a kind of robbery of public earnings by the people sitting in the government through industrialists. Is it even once pointed out in a survey, in a study... The people who were watching everything by keeping silent. Were they sought to be woken up by any institution?" he asked the gathering.

"... I do not know whether Ficci has done any survey on the way the previous government policies have plagued the banking sector? Nowadays, the non-performing assets is the biggest liability given to this government by economists sitting in the previous government," he said in a veiled jibe at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Modi also said he was keen to know what were the institutions like Ficci doing when some of the people sitting in the government were pressurising banks to lend to some industrialists.

"The people in the previous government knew and the banks knew. The industry was also aware. The market related institutions also knew that this was going wrong."

--IANS

rv-vsc/rn