Looted Money to Be Returned to Corruption Victims in Modi 3.0: PM Modi

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday told Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami in the biggest interview of the 2024 that looted money to be returned to corruption victims in Modi 3.0. 

In the most awaited interview of the year 2024, PM Modi said, “In Bengal, there’s an established rate card for government jobs. In Kerala, communists looted thousands of crores from the poor and middle class in co-op bank scams.  I am finding legal ways to return attached property seized from corrupt to the poor.”

PM Modi disclosed that investigating agencies have recovered nearly Rs 1.25 lakh crore from the corrupts which he said can be returned to the poor. The Prime Minister asserted that he is taking legal advice on how to return the 'looted money' of poor people back to them.

"Our agencies have recovered Rs 125,000 crore looted money. We see piles and piles of cash being seized on TV. This is the money of middle-class people and they have all the rights to get it back. We have already returned 17,000 crore rupees of looted money to the victims of corruption", he said. PM Modi added that he's exploring ways to return the lands snatched in Bihar's Land for Jobs scam. “In Kerala, communists looted thousands of crores from the poor and middle class in co-op bank scams. Finding legal ways to return attached property seized from corrupt to the poor.”

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.