Rajan report shows Cong's Mafia Raj: Irani

Latching on to former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan's submission on Bank NPAs before a parliamentary panel, the BJP on Tuesday went hammer and tongs against Congress alleging 'mafia raj' in economic policies of the UPA.

The ruling party also escalated an attack on the Nehru-Gandhi family for "allowing the nation's economy to go astray" while "increasing their personal finances".

Textile Minister and senior BJP leader Smriti Irani, who addressed a press conference from the party podium, said that Rajan's submission before the Estimates Committee is a "loud proclamation" of the corruption done by the Congress.

Estimates Committee is chaired by BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi.

In the submission before the panel, Rajan has said, "a larger number of loans were originated in the period 2006-2008 when economic growth was strong, and previous infrastructure projects such as power plants had been completed on time and within the budget. It is at such times that banks make mistakes. They extrapolate past growth and performance to the future."

Rajan also said, "this is the historic phenomenon of irrational exuberance, common across countries at such a phase."

BJP said that Rajan has revealed that the larger number of bad loans orginiated between 2006-2008, which was the tenure of UPA I government.'

"UPA Chairperson led a government that attacked the very core of the Indian Banking system," Irani said.

Elaborating on the reasons for NPAs such as slow growth, Rajan further said in the note that a variety of government problems such as the allocation of coal mines coupled with the fear of investigation "slowed down government decision making in Delhi, both in UPA and the subsequent NDA governments."

Rajan also says in the note that when he was RBI Governor, he had also sent a list of high profile cases to the PMO urging that coordinated action should be taken to bring at least one or two to book and that this is a matter that should be addressed with urgency. He has, however, not made it clear which PMO he was referring to in this case, the current one or that of the UPA.

She said that what the former RBI Governor said in the note is "indeed a reflection of Congress Mafiaraj, Congress Mafiaraj in economic policies of the government."