WEB DESK
Congress president Rahul Gandhi Sunday hit out at Narendra Modi over the alleged financial support of LIC to debt-ridden IL&FS and asked whether the prime minister “loves financial scams”. Taking to Twitter he said the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) is the country’s symbol of trust and common people have saved every rupee to buy its policies.
मोदीजी, आपकी चहेती निजी कम्पनी ILFS डूबने वाली है। आप LIC का पैसा लगाकर उसे बचाना चाहते हो।क्यों?
LIC देश के भरोसे का चिन्ह है। एक-एक रुपया जोड़कर लोग LIC की पॉलिसी लेते हैं। उनके पैसे से जालसाजों को क्यों बचाते हो?
कहीं आपके लिए ILFS का मतलब ‘I Love Financial Scams' तो नहीं?
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 30, 2018
“Modi ji, your favourite private company IL&FS is about to turn bankrupt. You are trying to save it by putting the money of LIC. Why?” he asked in a tweet in Hindi.
“…Why are you using LIC money to save fraudsters. For you, hope IL&FS does not mean I love financial scams,” he said.
In another tweet in Hindi, Gandhi alleged that in 2007, Modi as Gujarat chief minister gave the Rs 70,000 crore ‘Gift City’ project to IL&FS in which nothing has happened till now and alleged that a fraud had come to light.
In comparison, Gandhi alleged that in 2018, Prime Minister Modi is trying to give a bailout of Rs 91,000 crore to debt-ridden Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services (IL&FS) through public money in the LIC and the State Bank of India.
Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari also tweeted on Sunday: “This is why IL&FS financials need to be forensically audited as management, principal shareholders and NDA/BJP government are unwilling to address the 42,000 crore question Peruse second Graphic minutely. Rs 42,000 crore was disbursed in past four years. Nobody knows where the money 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.
In addition, the party has said that public savings via LIC and SBI should not be used to bailout the private entity in which foreign institutions have a stake.
On Saturday, the cash-strapped company said it was planning to have a “successful” rights issue and would sell its assets to repay creditors.