‘Self-appointed competent doctors’: Sitharaman’s blistering counter to Opposition over Yes Bank crisis comments

The Finance Minister said that the Indian banking system has had severe challenges “because of the way things were handled by the government which existed between 2004 and 2014”.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took on the Opposition as she spoke about the crisis in Yes Bank, which was put under moratorium by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday.

Yes Bank was put under moratorium by the RBI, which also appointed an administrator look after its affairs. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

“These so-called self-appointed competent doctors tell us ‘Oh, we did not handle the crisis well’. But our focus is to not let any institution fall. We are concerned that interest of the depositors and economy as a whole does not suffer,” Sitharaman said at a press conference on Friday evening.

“The Indian banking system has had severe challenges, thanks to the way in which the government which existed between 2004 and 2014 had handled the matters the way they handled it. I am not saying this because I have to put the blame on them, but I have reasons to put the blame on them,” said Sitharaman.

“I’ll give you even instances. They are telling us ‘Yes Bank is no bank’, ‘you don’t know how to handle it’. These so-called self-appointed competent doctors were the ones who handled United Western Bank, which almost collapsed in 2006. It was forcefully merged with IDBI. IDBI went down, United Western was anyway challenged, and those people speak today about the way we have ensured that the interests of Yes Bank and its customers are kept safe,” said the finance minister.

Sitharaman’s attack came after Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and P Chidambaram. Gandhi took a dig at the BJP-led government over the moratorium placed on Yes Bank, and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his “ideas” had destroyed the country’s economy.

“No Yes Bank. Modi and his ideas have destroyed India’s economy,” the former Congress chief said in a tweet.

Chidambaram, meanwhile, said the government is living in ignorance.

“I understand FM has made a statement blaming the UPA. That’s normal for a government living in ignorance. Does the FM know the numbers that I have tweeted? If she does, will she please explain how the loan book jumped in five years from ₹55,633 crore to ₹2,41,499 crore?” Chidambaram, who was the finance minister during Congress-led UPA government, said on Twitter.

“Who knows, FM may blame the UPA for the miraculous jump between 2014 and 2019,” he said in his second tweet.

Yes Bank was placed under a moratorium on Thursday, with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) capping deposit withdrawals at the bank at ₹50,000 per account for a month and superseding its board.

The bank will not be able to grant or renew any loan or advance, make any investment, incur any liability or agree to disburse any payment during the period.

For the next month, Yes Bank will be led by RBI-appointed administrator Prashant Kumar, a former chief financial officer of the State Bank of India (SBI).