Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and MP Subramanian Swamy in an interview to The Quint’s Sanjay Pugalia said that he handled the crisis when India was debt-ridden during the Gulf War in 1990 and “rescued” the nation from declaring bankruptcy.
In 1990, Chandra Shekhar was the leading a coalition government at the Centre as India’s prime minister and Swamy headed the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Rising oil prices, along with massive internal deficit and minimal foreign exchange, had pushed India to the brink of being declared a defaulter.
Speaking to The Quint, Swamy claimed that he was the one who averted the "humiliation” for India.
The Gulf War had broken out with the US waging war and the oil prices started to rise. Suddenly, we had no money at all. Everyone said the Government of India is going to be defaulter and they will not be able to pay their debts. That would have been humiliating for India.
He claimed that he struck an unusual deal with the United States that needed India’s help with refuelling during the war.
America sought our help to refuel an airplane in India, during the war. I negotiated with them and said that we’ll help them if the International Monetary Fund gave us $2 billion as loan, without any pre-conditions. They agreed and I cleared the way for refuelling. Nothing like this had happened in history before.Subramanian Sway to The Quint
He also credited Shekhar for “consulting him before taking important decisions,” during his tenure as the prime minister.
Watch the full interview here.
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