BJP and Congress today traded charges over "help" extended to Vijay Mallya in securing loans and fleeing the country, with the two parties hurling accusations at each other for coming to the aid of the beleaguered businessman.
Ahead of the Budget session beginning tomorrow, BJP sought to corner Congress, alleging the "corrupt hands" which helped Mallya secure bank loans belonged to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
Singh and Chidambaram rejected the charge, while Congress targeted the Modi government over allowing the liquor baron to flee to foreign shores.
BJP spokesman Sambit Patra quoted from purported letters written by Mallya to Singh seeking his intervention to bail out his struggling Kingfisher Airlines following which it got loans.
Patra asked Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her deputy Rahul to explain at whose behest the defaulting company got loans.
"The hands which pulled the strings to ensure that Mallya received loans are visible now. It belonged to Chidambaram and Singh. Did the hands of 10, Janpath also pull the string? Sonia and Rahul Gandhi should come out in public to say at whose behest the loans were sanctioned to Kingfisher Airline," he told a press conference.
"It was after one such letter Mallya had written to Singh on November 14, 2011 that the Prime Minister told the media that 'we have to find ways to get Kingfisher out of trouble'," Patra claimed.
Trashing the accusation, Singh and Chidambaram told the media that it was a routine thing for captains of industry to write letters to the government which were marked to appropriate authorities and that they did not violate any law.
"I think what I have done was done with full satisfaction of mind that we were not doing anything which was against law of the land," Singh said, rubbishing the charges at a press conference jointly addressed by him and Chidambaram at Congress headquarters.
Singh said all prime ministers and other ministers received representations from the industry.
"In normal course, we pass on these to appropriate authorities. It was a normal, routine transaction and therefore the letter that is being talked about is nothing but an ordinary piece of letter which any government in my position would have dealt with," Singh said.
Chidambaram, on his part, said hundreds of such representations received by the government were not dealt with by Ministers themselves.
"No Minister can deal with each one of these representations. They are marked down to departments and officers concerned, who will then take appropriate follow-up action," he said, adding there was "absolutely nothing wrong" if somebody sought some policy changes or wanted forbearance to be shown.
"If letter to PMO is marked down to Principal Secretary to PM and Principal Secretary fowards it to department concerned, these are normal," he claimed.
Dragging the top Congress leadership into the row, Patra
alleged that Pulok Chatterjee, the then Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, would "snatch" files from Singh to take them to 10 Janpath, Sonia Gandhi's residence.
In another letter, he alleged, Mallya sought Singh's intervention to get funds from banks released immediately.
In one of the letters, Mallya said he was very "relieved" and "pleased", apparently referring to developments in the interim, according to Patra.
A top PMO official had spoken to ministries concerned following his letter to Singh and Mallya had mentioned it, he alleged.
Patra cited another letter the liquor baron, who has been declared a proclaimed offender in the case by a court, allegedly wrote to Chidambaram in March 2013, seeking his intervention to get a No Objection Certificate from the SBI, which headed the consortium of banks which had given unrecovered loans to the airliner and its subsidiaries as his liquor company was in talks with Diageo for a deal.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala posed a string of questions to BJP, asking the ruling party to explain who was responsible for allowing Mallya to escape at a time when the consortium of lenders had moved against him for recovery of over Rs 9,000 crore.
"Was Vijay Mallya tipped off to run away from India by a high ranking official inside the Modi government?" he asked.
Surjewala also claimed BJP supported and voted for Mallya to get him elected to Rajya Sabha in June 2010. He also wanted to know if it was true that the businessman was once the working president of Subramanian Swamy's Janata Party. Swamy is now in BJP and locked in a legal battle with top Congress leadership including Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.
"Why did Modi government permit Diageo plc, which now owns United Breweries, make payment of USD 40 Million as part of agreement dated 25.02.2016 as also receive this money in an offshore account? What has action has Modi government taken against Diageo plc and United Breweries?" he asked.
Surjewala said, "Instead of levelling senseless allegations, BJP needs to come forward and answer questions."
Chidambaram said the loans that are under investigation were given in 2009, when he was not the Finance Minister.
"The letter does not concern Kingfisher, it concerns United Spirits limited, which was and is a thriving, flourishing profitable company. The letter does not talk about any loan, the letter talks about an NOC for a preferential allotment of shares. That is capital, equity, not loans," he said.
"Why has Modi Government not sought deportation of Vijay Mallya from UK till today?" Surjewala asked.
He said for all the talk of bringing back black money within 100 days of coming to power, the Modi government had allowed "a single defaulter with a default of over Rs 9000 crore to run away under the watch of the government.
