New Delhi: The Congress on Monday demanded that the State Bank of India declare the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation bankrupt as it sought to puncture holes into "dream merchant" Narendra Modi's "Mr Clean" image, armed with an RBI circular on Resolution of Stressed Assets.

Senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said the February 12 Reserve Bank circular mandated that any company that owed more than Rs 2,000 crore to banks on or after March 1 this year should be declared bankrupt if it didn't pay back within 180 days.

"The GSPC has taken the biggest loan from the SBI. According to the RBI circular, the SBI should declare the GSPC bankrupt by 5pm today," he told the media.

The GSPC had borrowed and invested money in gas exploration in the Krishna-Godavari basin under the watch of then chief minister Modi, who had even promised gas on tap in his 2007 Assembly election campaign. But while the Congress tried to drum up a narrative on this issue, leaders said, off the record, that it was unlikely the SBI would declare the corporation bankrupt as the matter is in court.

Some independent power producers, including Adani Power, Ramesh said, had moved Allahabad High Court seeking a stay and review of the RBI circular.

"And, for the first time in 70 years, the Centre has filed an affidavit against an RBI circular. This is unprecedented. The Centre and the RBI have had difference of opinion in the past but there is no precedent of the central government filing an affidavit in court against a circular issued by the bank. In its affidavit, the Centre has asked that the 180-day time frame be doubled to 360 days," he said.

Ramesh also alleged that the government had quietly encouraged the private players to go to court against the RBI circular, well aware that the GSPC was not in a position to pay back.

This is evident, he said, from the Debt Resolution Plan the GSPC had submitted to the SBI last month seeking a waiver or permission to distribute a part of its loan to a couple of companies of the state government - the Gujarat State Financial Services and the Gujarat State Investment Limited.

Ramesh said the GSPC owed the SBI Rs 1,200 crore, Bank of India Rs 470 crore, Bank of Baroda Rs 526 crore, Punjab National Bank Rs 292 crore and the Indian Bank Rs 764 crore.

The RBI had issued the circular in the wake of the enactment of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, which the BJP government often highlights as a big step in addressing the problem of non-performing assets in public sector banks.

Ramesh also said the Modi government had last year forced the ONGC to partly bail out the GSPC by coughing up Rs 8,000 crore to buy a stake in the corporation.

He said two CAG reports tabled in the Gujarat Assembly had highlighted mismanagement of funds and how undue benefits had been passed on by the GSPC to various private companies.