Did Fin Min Sitharaman call SBI 'heartless' and chairman Rajnish Kumar 'inefficient'?

In an interesting turn of events, soon after a bank officers' organisation condemned the purported "unsavoury attack" on SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar by Finance Minster Nirmala Sitharaman, it withdrew its statement.

In an audio clip that has gone viral on social media, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during a banking outreach programme last month in Guwahati, is, purportedly, heard calling SBI a “heartless bank”.

THE WEEK could not independently verify the authenticity of the clip. It is learnt that Sitharaman made the remarks while addressing the concerns of some 2.5 lakh tea garden workers in Assam whose bank accounts were not functional.

The All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) had condemned the purported "unsavoury attack" on SBI Chairman Kumar. The AIBOC is the largest bank officers' organisation having membership of around 3,20,000 officers.

In the audio clip, an SBI officer tells Sitharaman that the bank needed clearance from the Reserve Bank of India to make the accounts of tea garden workers functional.

“Don’t tire me out...don’t tire me out,” the finance minister says in response. “SBI chairman, you will meet me in Delhi on this matter and I am not letting this go.... This is utter omission of job. I hold you completely responsible for a failure and I shall have a detailed talk with you. … not one of the tea garden workers will suffer because of your obduracy.”

“You are a heartless bank. SLBCs [State Level Bankers’ Committees] don’t function like this. This will not work. Nothing makes up for your inefficiency...Let me be very blunt on this....,” she is heard saying.

Interestingly, her purported comments come at a time when the SBI is leading a consortium tasked with bailing out Yes Bank.

The AIBOC, in its now-withdrawn statement, says that it "vehemently condemns the direct and unsavoury attack on the Chairman of State Bank of India, Rajnish Kumar by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently in Guwahati as revealed in an audio clip, which has gone viral on social media", it said in a statement dated March 13.

"She launched a vituperative verbal tirade at Rajnish Kumar and accused him of being responsible for all the failures of extending loans, especially to tea garden workers in Assam," it added.

She even went on to brand SBI as a "heartless bank" and literally humiliated Rajnish Kumar, chairman of the largest bank of the country in the forum, it claimed.

"On the top of all, it is disheartening to observe that the entire episode has been recorded by someone and it has been ensured that the same goes viral on social media.

"We deem it nothing but an unfortunate deliberate attempt on part of certain unidentified miscreants who can unauthorisedly can go to the extent of recording and spreading the humiliation of SBI Chairman at the hands of the finance minister at an official conclave," the banking officers' union said.

However, the AIBOC withdrew the statement later, claiming it was “erroneously issued”. Sitharaman tweeted the letter but refrained from making any comments on it.