'Shows Racist Mindset': Arun Jaitley On Rahul Gandhi's 'Fair And Lovely' Jibe

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today slammed Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi over his 'Fair and Lovely' barbs at the government, saying the comments show a "racist mindset".

"I heard a phrase. I have no problem with the phrase but it is politically incorrect. It shows a racist mindset. That what is not fair is not lovely. Anyway, will pass it off as ignorance," Mr Jaitley said while replying on the budget debate in the Lok Sabha.

Earlier this month, Mr Gandhi had taken swipes at the government saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched a "fair and lovely scheme" to help tax evaders turn black or untaxed money into "white". "Modiji had promised that he would jail people with black money, now they have come up with ways to save those people," he had said.

Mr Jaitley, last week in Rajya Sabha, had defended the government's new black money scheme announced in the Budget, saying "it's not an amnesty scheme, it has a penalty."

"When you make comments on steps we are taking from foreign black money to domestic black money to filing prosecutions and assessments, please honestly compare your own track records in this regard," Mr Jaitley said, recalling an income disclosure scheme announced in 1997 by the then Congress government and its finance minister P Chidambaram.

Mr Gandhi has repeatedly attacked the government since the Budget announcement, accusing it of offering amnesty to tax evaders, but punishing the honest salaried class by proposing to tax withdrawals from the Employees Provident Fund or EPF, a retirement benefit fund.

Last week, Mr Jaitley announced in Parliament that the government was withdrawing the new EPF tax and will conduct a "comprehensive review" of the proposal.