A day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s remarks that disclosure of names of those holding illicit foreign accounts will embarrass the Congress, the Opposition party on Wednesday dared the Modi Government to come out with the full list of such names and asked it to stop “blackmail tactics” and indulge in “selective leakages”.
“The Congress is not going to be blackmailed under any such threat...Congress party is above individuals. Stricter possible action should be taken against whoever is involved in it but that should not be inspired by vindictiveness and it should also not be half truth,” said AICC Communication Department Chairman Ajay Maken.
The issue of black money has led to a war of words between the ruling BJP and the Congress. The Government recently told the Supreme Court that it cannot disclose the names of Swiss bank account holders, a stand the UPA had taken earlier.
As Congress accused the BJP Government of “practising hypocrisy” on the issue, Jaitely on Tuesday said, “The names (of black money account holders) will be public shortly... I can assure you there is no embarrassment I will have when all the names are disclosed. There is some embarrassment the Congress will have because of those names”.
Dismissing it, AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh accused Jaitley of “bluffing” while Youth Congress chief Rajiv Satav wondered what is stopping the Finance Minister from naming those people. In a tweet, Singh said, “Can it be a Diwali gift under Jan Dhan Yojna or we have to wait till 2019! FEKUISM at its best once again.”
Reacting sharply to Jaitley’s remarks, Maken said, “There is no need to blackmail Congress. Whatever name they have, they should reveal and act as they have a Government. They should not try to blackmail us.
“We also tell them not to limit the declaration of names only to 136 individuals. We want to tell the BJP and the Prime Minister that half truth is not the truth. They should not go for selective and vindictive leakages. They should come out with all the names,” said the former Union Minister.
Maken also recalled that the Prime Minister during his lok Sabha election campaign, had said that if the black money is brought back, each citizen will have Rs15 lakh while Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who was then BJP President, had promised to bring back black money within 100 days.
Another party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi asked the BJP Government “not to threaten the Congress”. “It is not going to have impact. Do not issue threat to us in reply to our questions. Do not insult the intelligence of people by first protecting black money account holders and then suggesting that it has been done by somebody else,” he said.
BJP hits back at Cong
New Delhi: The BJP hit back at the Congress saying the party had failed to take any effective steps like formation of SIT in bringing back black money stashed abroad in the last ten years when it was in power. It also charged the Congress with creating hurdles in this regard instead. “The Congress MPs also did not make any declaration on whether they have illegal bank accounts abroad, while all BJP MPs have done so in Parliament. The BJP Government has promised to take effective steps in this regard and is hopeful of coming out with names of those having stashed blackmoney abroad,” BJP’s national secretary Shrikant Sharma said. PNS