New Delhi: Interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi lashed out at the Centre over its disinvestment policy, alleging that the ‘fire sale of assets is to help the crony capitalists close to the government’.
Sonia Gandhi wrote this in an article which was shared by the Congress with the media.
She said in the article, “The Modi government is using the economy’s collapse since the pandemic to rush headlong into its mission of handing over large portions of India’s wealth to its favorite crony capitalists. It has announced its intent to become cash rich by selling the family silver, through hasty privatization of India’s public sector undertakings (PSUs).”
She said the Modi government has explicitly embraced “privatization”, instead of “disinvestment”.
“Its choice of language signals its intent. Unable to manage the nation’s finances, unable to inspire trust in the private sector to boost investment, the government has turned to distress sale of our national assets. Will selling assets for short-term gains make up for the long-term loss of public wealth?
“This fire sale is being justified by citing enhanced efficiency and the generation of funds for the government’s welfare programs. This is a deceptive argument. What we are likely to witness in reality is the privatization of PSU profits, and the nationalization of private sector losses.
“In the garb of privatization, valuable assets and profit-making companies will be undervalued and sold to cronies who will make a killing. On the other hand, defaulters with huge loan burdens will be bailed out using public funds,” she alleged.
“Executed carefully and strategically, disinvestment (which is the sale of a part of the government’s shares in PSUs) can generate resources for the government, set the right incentives for their management, and reward the investing public. In that spirit, in our 2019 Manifesto, the Congress party promised a middle path to disinvest from only non-core, non-strategic public sector enterprises.”
