UPA gave loans blindly, weakened banking sector: BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also said that due to the strictness of the Modi government, for the first time in the country, fugitive offenders were facing the heat.

New Delhi: The BJP on Wednesday attacked the previous UPA government for blindly giving away loans and weakening the banks due to which their losses increased from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 53,000 crore. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also said that due to the strictness of the Modi government, for the first time in the country, fugitive offenders were facing the heat. "Swachh Bharat Mission of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not restricted only to the cleanliness of courtyards but is also about the cleanliness in our economic system," Union Minister Piyush Goyal told a press conference here. The BJP leader said that after assuming office in 2014, the Modi government inherited an extremely fragile banking sector. "But the Prime Minister and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley took a wise decision not to bring any such white paper and they responsibly ran the government and brought sustainable solution to only strengthen the economy," Goyal said. Slamming the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for giving loans without doing fact-check of projects, Goyal said: "The UPA government started distributing loans from 2006 and the procedure went on till 2014. The bank losses increased from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 53,000 crore in those years." Citing the example of Indian Bank, Goyal said: "Same situation of the non-performing assets (NPAs) was prevalent when Atal Bihari Vajpayeeji's government had come to power. At that time, he brought in transparency and Indian Bank is running in profit. "Today, we have also brought transparency in the NPA loans and tried to resolve the entire mess that Congress gave us," he said. The Railway and Coal Minister also said that during the UPA government, a lot of powerful people took loans without taking into account the responsibility that comes along with it. "It is the Modi government which has acted tough with these people and forced them to pay back." He said that under the government's Fugitive Law, properties of the defaulters are attached. "Our government implemented the Benami Act. We brought GST instead of 40 different taxes."