Soon after the Centre invited bids for selling the government's 100 per cent stake in Air India, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy threatened to go to court to halt privatisation of the Maharaja. "This deal is wholly anti national and I will forced to go to court. We cannot sell our family silver (sic)," Swamy tweeted on Monday refering to the news of Air India stake sale.
Citing a media report, Swamy reasoned that the debt-ridden national carrier was on a recovery mode as the airlines April to December 2019 EBITDA turned positive at Rs 460 crore and the losses narrowed by 46 per cent. "Sir why does govt still want to sell this Family Silver instead of strengthening it?" Swamy asked in another tweet tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Swamy has been a staunch critic of the economic policies of the NDA government. On Sunday, Swamy had stated that India had to maintain a growth rate of 10 per cent to overtake China. "For that, the first thing India needs to do is to abolish income tax," the TOI reported, citing Swamy. He further suggested that if India successfully achieves 10 per cent GDP for one decade, at least it will overtake China and challenge the US in the next 20 years.
Earlier on Monday, the government announced sale of 100 per cent stake in debt-laden Air India as it issued the preliminary bid document for the strategic disinvestment and has set March 17, as the deadline for submitting expression of interest.
In 2018, the government proposed to offload 76 per cent equity share capital of the national carrier as well as transfer the management control to private players. However, there were no bidders.
