"Already returned Rs 17,000 crore to victims of corruption": PM Modi
"In Kerala, there is a big cooperative bank scam. These are controlled by communists. The money belonged to the middle class and the poor.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (ANI)
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he is seeking legal advice on how to return the money to the people that has been "looted in corruption", adding that already Rs 17,000 crore has been returned to victims of corruption.
In an exclusive interview with the Republic, the Prime Minister informed that another Rs 1.25 lakh crore of seized money can be returned to the victims
"In Kerala, there is a big cooperative bank scam. These are controlled by communists. The money belonged to the middle class and the poor. I attached the property of the politicians involved in this. I am taking legal advice on this but in many cases, we get the trail of who paid whom. We have already given Rs 17,000 crore of looted money to the victims of corruption," the Prime Minister said.
"Our agencies have also seized another Rs 1.25 lakh crore, we see piles and piles of cash being seized on TV, this money belongs to poor and middle-class society," he added.
Prime Minister outrightly rejected the allegations made by opposition parties over the misuse of Central agencies.
"When stacks of cash are evident, how can anyone have doubts about the actions of CBI or ED. The truth is corrupt people are getting caught red-handed," he said.
Earlier, Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh alleged on March 30 that no government in the past has so blatantly misused the investigative agencies and undermined the constitutional institutions as the Narendra Modi government has during the past ten years.
Talking to ANI, he said that the NDA government in the past, led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was different from the current dispensation, which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as the Vajpayee government never targeted opposition leaders as vehemently as the Narendra Modi government.
"Misusing the investigation agencies, threatening political parties, the Supreme Court, media and other constitutional institutions that should have been independent--these kinds of things never happened during the Vajpayee regime. These kinds of tactics we have never seen," Jairam Ramesh said.