Amid the row over the divestment of IDBI Bank, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday (October 30, 2026) took on the Congress and the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, alleging they used banks and financial institutions as “personal entities” and pressured bank employees to extend loans at their whim, bypassing prudent lending norms.
In a post on X, the Finance Minister also cited several instances from the Congress-led government, including the removal of State Bank of India (SBI) chairman R.K. In a letter to members of the IDBI Bank family, Mr. “I took that question to the Lok Sabha. I asked why a profitable public bank was being sold and how its employees and depositors would be protected. The government gave no reason. Now it has decided to sell IDBI Bank to Fairfax, a Canadian company,” Mr. Ms. “The era of ‘connection and setting banking’ is over.
Talwar in 1976 under Indira Gandhi’s rule after he allegedly refused to give in to political pressure to relax lending norms for a company linked to Sanjay Gandhi. Gandhi said a group of IDBI Bank employees had met him at Parliament House in March 2025 and asked a simple question: why the government was selling a bank they had made profitable.
Gandhi said. Sitharaman further said, “Congress-era banking had a phonebook for the powerful and a rulebook for the common citizens. Common people now have easy access to loans, and employees are not under pressure to extend loans over the phone calls,” the Minister said.
She was responding to a post on X by senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on IDBI Bank.
“The IDBI Bank is now poised for its next phase of growth,” the Finance Minister said.
