New Delhi:
In tweets, an 8-point questionnaire to the government, and a barrage of remarks, the Congress has expressed great umbrage at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's remark - made on NDTV - that the party will confront "embarrassment" when the government discloses a list of Indians accused of holding black money in foreign accounts. Amid reports that a former minister from the Congress-led UPA is on the list, Mr Jaitley said expect "a big name" from the Congress.
Warning against "selective leakage" of names and "vindictiveness", Ajay Maken of the Congress retorted today, "Do not try to blackmail us."
Yesterday, in an interview to NDTV, the Finance Minister said that the Congress has wrongly accused the government of stating that it will not share the names of Indians who have siphoned untaxed money to banks in tax havens like Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Mr Jaitley said the government has only clarified to the Supreme Court that tax treaties with other countries forbid the disclosure of names until preliminary investigations are done and the names handed over to court, a process that he said will be completed soon. "Once in court, the names will automatically be public," Mr Jaitley said.
The Supreme Court has created a special team to draw up a blueprint for the recovery of black money.
Congress leaders like Digvijaya Singh today taunted the government for vowing during the election campaign that black money would be brought back within 100 days of the BJP being elected.
Mr Singh tweeted:
The Congress has also said that the tax treaties that the government is citing to keep details confidential is exactly what it had explained when the Congress-led UPA was in power and under furious attack from the BJP over its alleged disinterest in punishing tax violators.