What’s Going On, Mr. Watchman!

In October 2013, during a frenzied build-up to the Lok Sabha Elections in 2014, Narendra Modi gave a now famous speech in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, where he dramatically thundered “Don’t make me the Prime Minister. Make me the chowkidar(watchman)! I will go to Delhi and prevent any panja (claws) from stealing from the sarkari tijori (government treasury)!” He has repeated this jumla (hollow phrase) periodically after winning the elections, most recently in Himachal Pradesh and in Ghazipur, UP.

Have a look at how the energetic watchman has been going about his job. A report released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on December 28, says that between 2014-15 (the year Modi became Prime Minister) and 2017-18, banks of the country were defrauded of Rs.1,03,255.5 crore. In fact, as the data shows, events of bank fraud have steadily gone up from Rs.19,455.1 crore in 2014-15 to a staggering Rs.41,167.7 crore in 2017-18.

That’s not all. Many of the top accused fraudsters have fled the country, as reported by Newsclick, even while the ‘watchman’ and his eagle-eyed minions were supposedly keeping a watch. In March this year, Parliament was told that at least 36 big-ticket ‘economic offenders’ – like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and others - have fled the country. Together, they are responsible for defrauding the public exchequer of an estimated Rs.40,000 crore.

The amounts allegedly embezzled  by some of those in the red list of fugitives are: Vijay Mallya (Rs.9,000 crore); Nirav Modi, his wife Ami Modi, brother Neeshal Modi and uncle Mehul Choksi (Rs.13,700 crore); Jatin Mehta  (Rs.7,000 crore); Lalit Modi (Rs.125 crore); Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara and Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara (Rs.5,000 crore); Ashish and Priti Jobanputra (Rs.770 crore); Ritesh Jain (Rs.1,500 crore); Sabhya Seth (Rs.390 crore); and Sanjay Bhandari (Rs.150 crore), according to a report.

So, who is the ‘Watchman’ helping and whose tijori is he guarding? That’s what people are left wondering. After all, it was this very type of loot that the Watchman was accusing the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of. So then, what’s the difference.

Talking of VIP fraudsters, the Watchman also failed to prevent the mounting bad loans of banks. According to the same RBI report, gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of all scheduled commercial banks stood at about Rs.10.4 lakh crore on 31 March 2018. Previous RBI data shows that in 2014-15, when the Watchman took over, gross NPAs were about Rs.2.6 lakh crore.

In April this year, the government had to admit in Parliament that since 2014-15 (when the Watchman took charge of thesarkari tijori) loans worth Rs.2.72 lakh crore had been written off (or compromised upon) by the 21 public sector banks. Most of this was to corporate houses.

So what’s going on Mr.Watchman? The treasury is actually being steadily looted. It’s not as if money is being spent on welfare measures or programmes to create employment or remove poverty. This is pure, unadulterated fraud and government gifts to coprporates.

Add to all this the fact that the Modi Sarkar has sold off country’s assets worth over Rs.2 lakh crore in its nearly five years of rule, topping all previous governments – and you will see that the energetic Watchman has been quite busy. Except that contrary to what he promised to the people about guarding their wealth, he has been protecting the wealth of corporate entities, freely allowing the govt.’s treasury to get diminished.

Meanwhile, also think about the recent report that our Watchman spent Rs. 2,021 crore on his foreign trips to a total of 55 countries ever since he took over! Really energetic, our Watchman!