Union Minister for Chemicals, Fertilisers and Parliamentary Affairs, Ananth Kumar, on Wednesday challenged the Congress party, specifically Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, for an open debate on black money and on 10 years of various scams during the UPA regime.
“It’s unfortunate that people who have hoarded black money are observing black day today when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a historic decision to purge black money through demonetisation, which I would like to call remonetisation,” he said at a press conference.
Flanked by Telangana BJP leaders K. Laxman, Bandaru Dattatreya, Kishan Reddy, N. Ramachandra Rao and others, Mr. Kumar said he was here to explain the positive effects of demonetisation as against the campaign taken up by the Congress.
“Congress is synonymous with black money amounting to ₹12 lakh crore generated through various scams from Bofors to Coal Gate. The very first decision of the Modi Cabinet was to form a special investigation team to probe into black money,” he said.
Reeling out figures, the Minister said ₹6 lakh crore black money was pulled out of circulation following the demonetisation of high-denomination notes, while 1.5 lakh persons deposited about ₹5l lakh crore which was being scrutinised along with 22.22 lakh PAN cards for making deposits of ₹3.68 lakh crore.
“Once the investigations are complete and the legal processes are through, the money will come to the national exchequer,” he said, while mentioning the closure of scores of shell companies. Deposits amounting to ₹17,000 crore made by these firms from 58,000 bank accounts too were under scanner.
Hat-trick in the offing
Mr. Kumar said the people have already accepted demonetisation by electing the BJP in various States while a “hat-trick’ was in the offing as it was slated to win in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka too. “Is this not enough so show that people have already blessed us,” he sought to know.
Black money abroad
With regard to black money stashed abroad, he said it was difficult to get an exact estimate of the amount, but the government was making a “serious effort” and has been pursuing with various countries legally, while about ₹15-16,000 crore has been realised. “It is going to be a long process,” he said.
