To blame Vijay Mallya alone would be unfair!

Vijay Mallya, the most flamboyant and successful businessman of India is now facing some serious flak from everyone and was being termed as a 'runner thief' and 'absconder' by all. He rubbished these allegations by tweeting, "I am an international businessman. I travel to and from India frequently. I did not flee from India and neither am I an absconder. Rubbish."

He was once referred to as Indian version of Richard Branson among many other epithets. Whether he is or not that's debatable in the current scenario but he certainly has taken Richard Branson's advice that "the quickest way to be a millionaire is to get a billionaire to invest in airlines!"

Being accused for taking 9000 crores is a serious allegation but the question we all should be asking is should he alone be blamed? He has left the entire law machinery looking askance. Banks are impounding on him but it's a fact that the managers at these banks are always hand in glove with the defaulters. Thus, the banks have been impaled upon their own sword. Also the situation is a classic example of how the 'political nexus' continues to drain off India's wealth. Airline operations are the main method of money laundering in our country which is why no government wants a profitable airline. Also, airline is the one of the most risky business in the world. Mallya was a liquor baron before moving into airline so what kind of credibility in business skills did he present to the Banks, who lent him this vast amount of money. Does the ability to sell alcohol successfully make him predisposed to running an airline?

Moreover, the Kingfisher became a non-performing asset (NPA) in 2012. So why did the Congress party who was ruling the country for the last one decade was allowing government banks to take a soft approach towards Mallya despite knowing the airlines was going in loss. Congress failed to notice all these while that had a direct implication on public depositors (and taxpayers). Also, why such delay by the banks to come out for their money?

The simple explanation is that bank officials and politicians were benefiting from Mr. Mallya's bribes maybe and therefore overlooked these loopholes. I have crossed paths with Mr. Mallya on two occasions that is during F1 races in Singapore and Delhi and have interviewed him on one occasion. Sighting politicians and media moguls with a kingfisher beer can was a common sighting in the F1 paddocks. He himself took a dig at the media through his tweet, "Let media bosses not forget help, favours,accommodation that I have provided over several years which are documented. Now lies to gain TRP ?"

This reminds me of Sahara boss Subroto Roy whose lavish parties were attended by renowned names from all walks of life and now his abode is Tihar Jail. Therefore, blaming Vijay Mallya entirely would be naïve. We need to understand that he was fostered and used as a scapegoat by the political forces which guarded his and their own interests. To prove my point, according to RBI's report the NPAs of public sector banks in 2015 stands at 52,542 crores (Around 9 billion dollars ). It is also reported that the RBI disclosed that while bad debts stood at Rs 15,551 crore for the financial year ending March 2012, they had shot up by over three times to Rs 52,542 crore by the end of March 2015. How did the bad debts jumped 3 times within a span of 2 years? Political clout

Vijay Mallya is still a Rajya Sabha Member and Ottavio Quattrocchi was quite close to the Gandhi family because of Sonia Gandhi's Italian roots. Political clout is the reason why people like Vijay Mallya and Ottavio Quattrocchi continue to escape law.

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