Breaking his silence on the issue of his wife’s purported Swiss bank accounts, Congress Deputy leader in the lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday questioned the timing and motives of the Central Government in seeking “selective information” from the Swiss authorities.
Only a day before, the Swiss authorities had revealed that India has asked for its assistance in the investigations into accounts allegedly held by former Congress minister Preneet Kaur and her son Raninder Singh.
The Swiss Federal Tax Administration has reportedly asked Capt Amarinder’s wife Preneet and his son to file an appeal within 10 days for the “right to be heard” after India's request for details on them.
“Despite my wife and son having already furnished all the details and answers to all questions raised by the Income Tax department of the Central Government, from time to time, the Centre with an obvious questionable motive wanted to highlight this particular case,” alleged Capt Amarinder.
He said: “The matter of ‘foreign bank accounts’ is pending before Income Tax Authorities since 2011 where it has been clearly stated that neither my wife, nor my son or me have any foreign bank account.”
He pointed that the Swiss authorities in their notification have nowhere stated that Preneet Kaur and Raninder Singh have Swiss bank account(s). This notification is a matter of procedure to be followed in respect of individuals whose names are sent by Indian Government enquiring about accounts, he added.
Capt Amarinder said that it was clearly aimed by the BJP government at the Centre to help its beleaguered partner in Punjab, which has been cornered in the recent past for multiple failures.
“This is a desperate attempt of the government or the BJP to malign my image before 2017 Punjab polls without any iota of truth in the allegations,” he said.
The former Chief Minister pointed out that it was Narendra Modi who during the parliamentary election campaign had raised this issue and named him in April 2014 at Barmer in Rajasthan while addressing an election rally.
“At that time also, he (Modi) raised this baseless issue as the BJP had been cornered in Amritsar with the party finding that its candidate Arun Jaitely, currently his finance minister, was trailing and was certain to lose, which he eventually did by a margin of over one lakh votes,” he said.
Capt Amarinder added that Arun Jaitley still can’t come to terms with his defeat in Amritsar and is pursuing this matter with a “vindictive mindset”.
Similarly, Capt Amarinder added, now when the Congress is proposing a reshuffle in the party in Punjab and the Akali-BJP feel threatened by him, they have resorted to their old habit and dirty tricks of using the income tax department and other central agencies against their political opponents.