Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy on Sunday said Nandan Nilekani, the Congress candidate from the Bangalore South constituency, who recently resigned as chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, should be prosecuted under the Prevention of the Corruption Act for what he termed the alleged squandering of resources for implementing the Aadhaar scheme.
He told presspersons here that a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, judged the Aadhaar scheme “the most useless” and the Standing Committee of Parliament on Finance too had echoed the same view. “Mr. Nilekani should be prosecuted under Section 13 (1) (G)/3 of the Prevention of the Corruption Act.”
The Congress has pitted the Infosys co-founder against five-time MP and BJP’s general secretary Ananth Kumar.
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Mr. Swamy said Rs. 4,000 crore had been spent on the scheme in the last five years.
The UPA government had set aside a budgetary allocation of Rs. 12,568 crore for implementing it. “If the NDA comes to power, the present form of Aadhaar will be scrapped,” he said.
The BJP leader said the country’s economy “is sick and in a tailspin heading for a crash unless effective steps are taken soon to reverse the trend.”
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“Adverse Balance of Payments’ (current account deficit) as a ratio of GDP is highest since 1990, at 4 per cent. Total deficit in the Central and State budgets now exceeds the danger mark of 12 per cent of GDP, thereby committing a crime under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act passed by Parliament.”
If NDA government came to power, it would auction 2G spectrum, coal blocks and oilfields for raising funds for implementing welfare schemes. Income tax limit would be increased for providing relief to the middle class, Mr. Swamy added.