New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS) Facing constant attack on the IL&FS crisis, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday hit back at the Congress accusing it of "spreading disinformation" and said the "perverted Rahul Gandhi school of thinking" was finding a scam in an investment by financial institutions in a company.
Calling Congress a "national saboteur", he asked whether all those instances of public sector entities investing in IL&FS during the UPA regime were a scam.
"The financial institutions' investment in any company - 'is it a scam' as Rahul Gandhi and his coterie are spreading? Was it a scam in 1987 when the IL&FS was promoted with the Central Bank of India having 50.5 per cent shares and the UTI having 30.5 per cent shares," Jaitley asked in a Facebook post.
"Was it a scam in 2005 when LIC acquired 15 per cent stake in IL&FS and in March, 2006 when it acquired another 11.10 per cent stake? In fact, LIC further bought 19.34 lakh shares in IL&FS in 2010," he added.
"Do I start calling all these investments today 'a scam' as per 'the perverted Rahul Gandhi school of thinking'?"
The Minister said the Congress must remember that "the days of crony capitalism" were over and that NDA government dealt with such challenges "objectively and professionally".
Jaitley's remarks came a day after Congress President Rahul Gandhi alleged that public money was being used to bail out the debt-ridden IL&FS group.
In a tweet, Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was bailing out the group which had a long-term debt liability of around Rs 91,000 crore via public savings in LIC and the State Bank of India.
"From where has he invented a proposal of Rs 91,000 crore investment likely to take place by LIC and SBI in the IL&FS," Jaitley asked.
"The Congress Party, for the last few days, has been busy spreading misinformation about the government's possible moves in relation to the private sector company IL&FS. The Congress is a national saboteur. It wants to sabotage India's economy by allowing a situation in relation to a company to persist, expand and become unmanageable. It lacks statesmanship and vision," he said.
The Minister added that it was, in fact, a section of the Congress leadership which was urging him to enable investments in the IL&FS and save the company.
"A senior Congress leader, K.V. Thomas, who is a former Union Minister and has been the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, has written to me on September 20 making such a request.
"It demolishes every word that Rahul Gandhi and his coterie has been spreading. It may be advisable for Rahul Gandhi to get some 'words of wisdom' from Thomas," he said.
