A bitter war of words erupted ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament between the BJP and the Congress over the alleged misuse of authority by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in pushing reluctant banks to lend to now-absconding industrialist Vijay Mallya.

The BJP fielded party spokesperson Sambit Patra to allege that the “corrupt hands that pushed banks to lend loans to Mallya’s company belonged to Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram”. Patra based his allegations on three letters and an email written by Mallya to Singh, Chidambaram and his Chief Finance Officer Ravi Nedungadi respectively.

“We all know that Mallya was helped. Otherwise, how could a company with negative financial rating and a known loan defaulter get thousands of crores worth of loans? Now it transpires that he had help from the very top,” said Patra, addressing a press conference at the BJP office.

In the first letter Patra quoted, Mallya wrote to Singh, thanking him for talking to him and acknowledging the role played by former principal secretary TKA Nair in speaking to the concerned ministries to help his fledgling airline. Another letter sent by Mallya to his manager allegedly showed that he had Chidambaram intervene in pushing the State Bank of India to give him an NoC (no-objection certificate) to issue shares on preferential basis. “Chidambaram pushed a reluctant bank for the purpose of infusing money into Mallya’s company,” said Patra.

As the day progressed, Singh and Chidambaram appeared at the Congress headquarters to release a report on the state of the economy, questioning the government’s record on the eve of the presentation of the Economic Survey. The Congress stalwarts dismissed the BJP’s allegations.

Singh said every person in the Cabinet gets representations from various groups and individuals and it is passed on to concerned departments. “It was a normal routine transaction and therefore the letter that’s being talked about is nothing but an ordinary piece of paper,” the former PM said, and added that what he did wasnothing against the law of the land.

Chidambaram added that the government receives hundreds of representations every day which are not dealt by ministers. “They are marked down to departments concerned who then take appropriate action. You are looking at one letter that has been leaked. But what about the other letters that are received by the ministries?” Chidambaram asked.

The Congress asked the BJP to explain why the Narendra Modi government let Mallya escape from India despite the fact that the consortium of banks had moved against him for recovery of over ₹9,000 crore. “Was Vijay Mallya tipped off to run away from India by a high-ranking official inside the Modi government? Why did BJP vote for and help him get elected as an MP, Rajya Sabha in June 2010? Is it also not true that Vijay Mallya has been working president of Subramaniam Swamy’s Janata Party?” asked Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

He also alleged that Modi government permitted Diageo Plc, which now owns United Breweries, to make a payment of $40 million as part of agreement dated February 25, 2016 as also receive this money in an offshore account. “What has action has Modi government taken against Diageo Plc and United Breweries?” he asked.

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