Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday dismissed the claim made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that Centre has waived off Rs 65,000 crore of loan defaulters, stating that he must take tuition from former Finance Minister P Chidambaram to understand the difference between writing off and waiving off. “I was taken aback by Rahul Gandhi’s comment that Modi govt has waived off Rs 65,000 crore. Not a single penny has been waived off. Writing off is not waiving off,” said Javadekar in a video message. Cornering Gandhi over the matter, the Union Minister suggested that Gandhi should take tuition classes from Chidambaram to understand the difference between writing off and waiving off. “Rahul Gandhi must take tuition from Chidambaram to understand the difference between writing off and waiving off,” he said. Describing the meaning of ”writing off”, the Union Minister gave examples of fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi and billionaire Vijay Mallya. “Writing off is a process to show depositors correct pictures of the bank. It does not stop banks from taking actions and pursuing recovery. We have seen how Nirav Modi’s assets are seized and auctioned. Mallya is left with no choice but to come back as his appeal in High Court has been rejected,” he said. Gandhi had attacked the BJP after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a list of 50 wilful defaulters accused of cheating banks. Taking to Twitter on Tuesday, Gandhi alleged that the BJP was hiding the names of defaulters as it included “friends of the government”. “I had asked a simple question in Parliament – tell me the names of 50 bank defaulters. Finance Minister refused to answer. Now RBI has put names of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and other BJP friends in the list. This is why they hid the truth from Parliament,” Gandhi tweeted in Hindi along with a video. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on Tuesday rebutted Gandhi and Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala’s allegations regarding “wilful defaulters, bad loans and write-offs”, and stated that they have “attempted to mislead people in a brazen manner”.
