ABG Shipyard Fraud Committed During Congress Tenure: BJP

New Delhi: After Congress declared ABG Shipyard scam as one of the biggest one to unravel under the Modi-led current NDA government, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday alleged that the said scam was committed in 2013, under the tenure of UPA government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh.

BJP National Spokesperson Dr. Sudhanshu Trivedi said that the basing on the developing information around the ABG Shipyard scam and the fact-sheet presented by the CBI allegedly indicates that the timeline of "con" began before 2014, when Congress was in the Centre.

"It has come to light that the ABG Shipyard was listed as Non-Performing Asset (NPA) on November 20th, 2013. And at that time whose government was at the Centre? Congress government. As per the facts, it has come to notice that the maximum swindling took place between 2005 and 2012," Trivedi said today while addressing a media gathering at the party's headquarters.

ABG Shipyard Limited's (ABGSL) defrauding goes upto Rs 22,842 crore, which also includes deceiving 28 banks of an amount. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently booked ABG Shipyard Limited, its former chairman and managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal and others for allegedly cheating a consortium of two dozen lenders led by ICICI Bank.

The said scam is significantly higher than the Rs 14,000-crore scam by diamond trader Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The two defrauded Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 14,000 crores, with the help of some bank staff, negligent bank management and poor supervision by bank auditors While Nirav Modi is currently in the United Kingdom and is seeking political asylum in Britain, Mehul Choksi, owner of Geetanjali Group, is in Antigua.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has dubbed ABG Shipyard scam as the biggest scam to happen in India in 75 years. Meanwhile BJP has said that the scam took place during the tenure of Congress and that it was BJP which initiated an investigation into the matter.

"Till now, it wasn't about when this scam took place. During the end of the (UPA) tenure in 2014, ABG Shipyard's loan was restructured. And if you see the complete timeline then in 2011, different orders were placed of Rs. 970 crores, Rs. 500 crores, in March it was restructured. When the audit report came in 2016, said people were stated as accused and it was declared as a scam during our (NDA) term," Trivedi added.

He also took a swipe at Congress that the political party is known for its regime of scams, and that the ABG Shipyard scam is another feather to the cap.

"This has further added another feather in their extensively overburdened cap of blatant corruption. Now we would like to ask the Congress party as to what was their role in the "biggest scam" because the promoters of this company are closely related to Congress Chief's former political advisor," Trivedi said.