AIBOC condemns verbal attack on SBI Chairman

New Delhi: The All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) has condemned the purported "unsavoury attack" on SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar by Finance Minster Nirmala Sitharaman during a banking event last month in Guwahati.

The association claimed that an audio clip has gone viral on social media that revealed the finance minister coming down heavily on SBI chief, accusing him of poor credit uptick, during an outreach programme in late February.

The AIBOC is the largest bank officers' organisation having membership of around 3,20,000 officers. The AIBOC "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.

It appears that on February 27, 2020, while attending the SBI Financial Inclusion Outreach programme at Guwahati, the finance minister came down heavily on State Bank of India and its chairman Rajnish Kumar in presence of finance minister of Assam and other officials of DFS, state government, heads of various other banks, the AIBOC said.

"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.