'Does he understand monetization?': FM Nirmala Sitharaman lashes out at Rahul Gandhi

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lashed out at former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday after the latter claimed that the BJP government was 'selling' everything that the UPA government 'helped build' over 70 years, as he criticised the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP). Nirmala Sitharaman asked, "Does he even understand monetization?"

On Monday, Nirmala Sitharman launched the NMP, which is a four-year plan staked at Rs 6 lakh crores for monetising infrastructure assets across sectors from rail to road to power. 

Finance Minister lashes out at Rahul Gandhi

Speaking to the media, Nirmala Sitharaman reminded Rahul Gandhi that the UPA governments headed by his party raised Rs 8,000 crore by monetising the Mumbai-Pune expressway. She further outlined that in 2008, it was the UPA government that floated the request for a proposal to lease out New Delhi Railway Station.

Citing this one incident when Rahul Gandhi had torn off an ordinance he didn't agree with, she asked,

"If he indeed is against monetisation, why was the RFP on the monetisation of NDLS torn to pieces by Rahul Gandhi? And if this is monetisation, did they sell off the New Delhi railway station?

The Finance Minister further asked, "Is it owned by your brother-in-law (Robert Vadra) now?

'Does not involve selling off assets': Nirmala Sitharaman

Coming out clear on the NMP, she said,

“The assets are brownfield assets which are completed but under-utilised. If the government has to utilise it better, it has to be through monetisation process wherein it will be put to effective use with a bit more addition to spruce it up to bring it up to utilisation."

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi described the Narendra Modi government’s monetization scheme of public assets as an attempt to create a monopoly in critical areas and opined that it would cut down more job opportunities and wipe out the informal sector. He also drew a sharp contrast between the privatization professed by Congress and the BJP.

"Our privatization had a logic and there was no privatization of strategic industry such as the railways." He added, " All this privatization is for creating monopolies. You know who owns ports and getting airports."