Vijay Joshi & Kumar Rakesh
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asserted that his ‘Adani-Ambani’ remark has been validated by senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury when he “admitted” that he will not speak against Adani-Ambani if they send “tempo-loads of money”. He was speaking to PTI Videos late Sunday.
On May 8, the prime minister had accused the Congress of having a nexus with “Ambani and Adani”, and asked if the party had received “tempo loads of black money” from the two businessmen for its leader Rahul Gandhi to stop “abusing” them.
Asked about the remark which had taken people by surprise, Modi said, “For the past few years, the main campaign plank of Congress’ ‘shehzada’ (prince) had been singing the same tune about two people. And suddenly, as the elections began, the main campaign plank has shifted. Why this sudden change? My point was instantly validated by none other than the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha.”
The Congress has been accusing the prime minister of favouring the top five industrialists in the country, including Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani.
In an interview to an online platform, Chowdhury was asked that he speaks against Adani and Ambani and he responded by saying, “Yes, I do because they don’t send us money. If they send, people (will) become silent.” Asked if he would become silent on getting money, Chowdhury nodded with a laugh and said, “First let them send, then we will consider.”
Modi said the battle against corruption is a serious one and the investigative agencies must be allowed to do their work without interference. Pointing out that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are agencies that function independently, he said, “they have done an excellent job in tackling cases of corruption and black money. Before 2014, the ED attached only Rs 5,000 crore. In my tenure, assets worth Rs 1 trillion have been attached.
Meanwhile, in a post on X, Modi commended banks for recording a combined net profit of over Rs 3 trillion in FY24 and added the improvement in their health will further augment credit delivery to the needy sectors including the poor and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
“In a remarkable turnaround in the last 10 years, India’s banking sector net profit crosses Rs 3 lakh crore (trillion) for the first time ever,” Modi said, replying to a media report. According to the media report, while public sector banks (PSBs) reported 34% annual growth in net profit at Rs 1.4 trillion in FY24, private banks together posted a 42% increase in net profit at Rs 1.7 trillion.
“When we came to power, our banks were reeling with losses and high NPAs due to the phone-banking policy of UPA. The doors of the banks were closed for the poor,” he said. “This improvement in the health of banks will help improve credit availability to our poor, farmers and MSMEs,” he added.
In the past one year, the Nifty PSU Bank Index surged by 80.77% while the Nifty Private Bank Index was up by only 7.9%. As a result, Bank Nifty rose 10.16% during the past year compared with the benchmark Nifty which gave a 24.12% return. –PTI