In his fresh attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi has alleged that public money was being used to bail out the debt-ridden Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services (IL&FS) group. The group has a debt burden of over Rs 90,000 crore.
The Congress chief has alleged that PM Modi is rescuing the group via public savings in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and the State Bank of India (SBI).
The IL&FS Group is a vast conglomerate with a complex corporate structure that funds infrastructure projects across the country.
In his tweet titled "Lights, Camera, Scam", Mr Gandhi alleged that in 2007 when PM Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, the IL&FS was given the "Gift City" project worth Rs 70,000 crore and till date no work has been done under the plan.
And then in 2018, he added, PM Modi is bailing out the same company via LIC and SBI.
In another tweet addressed to PM Modi, he asked why should public money be used to save the sinking IL&FS? "People of India have faith in the LIC. They save every single penny to buy an LIC policy. So why should their money be used to save fraud companies?" he posted on Twitter.
He also expanded the IL&FS to "'I Love Financial Scams" to underscore his point.
Recently, the Congress warned of "an impending 'Lehman Brothers-type' economic crisis facing the country". The party has called for a forensic audit of the group over the disbursement of Rs 42,000 crore in the last four years.
Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari also tweeted that nobody knows where the Rs 42,000 crore disappeared.
The call for an audit comes at a time, when concerns have been raised regarding the financial stability of the group after some of its subsidiaries defaulted on commercial paper repayment obligations.
On Saturday, the cash-strapped group said it would sell its assets to repay creditors.
The company in its Annual General Meeting sought shareholders' permission to carry out its plans to recapitalise itself.
Meanwhile, the government said that it would take appropriate action to ensure that there is no undue impact on the financial system owing to the IL&FS crisis. Debt defaults by certain group entities of diversified IL&FS has triggered fears of liquidity crisis in the financial markets and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been taking steps to improve the overall cash situation.
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