Congress spokesperson, Supriya Shrinate alleged that Union Bank of India placed an order for two lakh copies of a book authored by Subramanian, who had earlier served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Union Government. The Congress on Tuesday (May 6, 2025) claimed that Narendra Modi Government abruptly terminated K.V. Subramanian’s tenure as India’s Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) due to “embarrassing details” that have emerged in the public domain and “impropriety” committed by him. Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson, Supriya Shrinate alleged that the Union Bank of India placed an order for two lakh copies of a book authored by Mr. Subramanian, who had earlier served as the Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) to the Union Government. Raising questions of “wastage” of public money, Ms. Shrinate alleged the cost of this “blatant propaganda” was borne by the public exchequer because Mr. Subramanian “justified every economic blunder and flawed policy of the Government”. “The cost for the book did not come from BJP coffers but from the public, taxpayers and depositors of the bank,” she alleged. Neither the Union Bank of India nor Mr. Subramanian reacted to the allegations levelled by the Congress at a press conference. “The Government has so far given no reason for this abrupt and rare sacking. He is the same K.V. Subramanian, who was the Chief Economic Adviser and who had during COVID, when the economy had shrunk by over 24%, predicted a V-shaped recovery,” Ms. Shrinate said.
Internal documents:
The Congress spokesperson cited internal documents of the public sector bank, claiming that it had placed an order for two lakh copies of Mr. Subramanian’s book “India@100” at a cost of ₹7.25 crores and an advance payment of ₹3.5 crores was made. “These books were meant to be distributed through zonal and regional offices of the Union Bank of India to its depositors, schools, colleges and libraries. Each of the bank’s 18 zonal offices were meant to receive 10,525 copies. After making the advance payment, the regional offices were asked to incur the rest of the cost under their miscellaneous expenditure,” Ms. Shrinate said. The Congress spokesperson asked if the Union Bank of India had obtained prior approval from its Board of Directors or the Department of Financial Services and asked if the Union Finance Ministry investigated whether the transaction constituted a conflict of interest or not, given Mr. Subramanian’s previous role as CEA.
Source : https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/financial-impropriety-forced-modi-govt-to-remove-subramanian-as-imf-executive-director-congress/article69545832.ece
