UPA Govt dragging its feet on blackmoney: Yashwant Sinha

Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha today accused the UPA government of “dragging its feet” on the issue of blackmoney, saying it was not launching prosecution to shield the offenders. He said the government’s stand that bilateral agreement was coming in its way in disclosure of names was hard to accept and vowed to make public the identity of those who parked ill-gotten money in banks abroad if NDA comes to power in 2014. “We do not agree with the government’s view that bilateral agreements prevent it from disclosing names. This is one interpretation of the government,” he said. “Secondly, even as per government interpretation, names will automatically come out in the public domain if prosecution is launched (against the accused persons),” the former Finance Minister said. [caption id=“attachment_183315” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption] He questioned the intention of the Government on the blackmoney issue and sought an answer as to what prevented it from launching prosecution against 700 persons about whom it received information from France six months ago. Sinha said, “Why prosecution has not been launched after giving showcause notices? Somewhere we feel that the government is dragging its feet on this issue. Why, well that is for everybody to gauge. If the BJP comes to power, we will disclose the names.” Training his guns on Home Minister P Chidambaram on the 2G scam, he said as the then Finance Minister, he had “higher responsibility” as the Prime Minister had gone “along with him” as he had agreed with Raja on the issue of allocation of 2G spectrum and its pricing model. “Chidambaram is even more guilty than Raja because he had higher responsibility and Prime Minister himself had said he went along with Chidambaram because he had agreed (with Raja on pricing of spectrum),” he said. Sinha said Chidambaram has to share the blame because as the Finance Minister, he agreed with Raja and Government felt that due diligence was undertaken. “Because the Finance Minister agreed, it is generally felt that due diligence has been done. Obviously due diligence was not done. Therefore, person with higher responsibility must share higher blame,” he said. The lawmaker, who represents Hazaribagh in Lok Sabha, said he was not expressing his views as a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee but as an independent observer on the basis of documents which are in public domain. PTI