NEW DELHI: Interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Thursday 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'. She said the Modi government has explicitly embraced "privatisation", instead of "disinvestment".

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 favourite crony capitalists. It has announced its intent to become cash rich by selling the family silver, through hasty privatisation of India's public sector undertakings (PSUs)."

"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 programmes. This is a deceptive argument. What we are likely to witness in reality is the privatisation of PSU profits, and the nationalisation of private-sector losses.

"In the garb of privatisation, 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.

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