Editorial
“Not me, not you. Even the previous government did not have any idea about the figure,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the nation on his Sunday Radio address, prompting many to remark that the BJP leader was sounding somewhat generous towards his predecessor Manmohan Singh led Congress regime and paving way for speculations whether the entire saffron party campaign on the issue in May 2014 was for a pre-election audience.
Months ago, Modi as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate reportedly had promised that every Indian would get Rs.15 lakhs into his account if all the black money returned back to India. So the question now is how he arrived at the Rs 15 lakh figure when he had no idea about the quantum of black money.
After coming to power in New Delhi, the narrative of the BJP and its leader has taken a beating retreat on the issue of black money, with the prime minister now accepting before the nation that he was not even aware of the quantum of money stashed in the foreign banks.
The U-turn of the BJP led NDA was palpable on the issue when Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the same day that making public the list of foreign account holders handed to the apex court would violate the tax treaties India has signed with other nations and could sabotage the investigations to unearth black money, even as now Law Minister Ravi Shnakar Prasad had said in January 2011 when in opposition that “The government’s (Congress led UPA) argument that it can reveal the names to the Supreme Court but not to the public due to double taxation is baseless.” The change of tone and tenor after coming to power in New Delhi, exemplifies that the way the entire campaign on the issue of black money was built by BJP and its media managers like Baba Ramdev was nothing more than a political gimmick.
Even Nitin Gadkari in January 2011 had said that “any reluctance in declaring the names of Swiss bank account holders will simply raise doubts about the integrity of people at the helm.”
There is no doubt that the language of the BJP and its leaders has changed now and they are also like the erstwhile Congress led UPA regime hiding behind the double taxation clause and the Indo-Swiss treaty which apparently bars from making the names of individuals public.
“BJP is acting like Congress. It is working exactly the same way as the Congress and whatever it has done on the issue of black money is an example of it,” AAP leader Yogendra Yadav told reporters.
The new BJP narrative has invited scathing attacks on the prime minister and his party also from Sharad Yadav of JD (U) who said black money “will never return to India”, the BJP and Modi are fooling people and they also know it.
“BJP had spent hundreds of crores (of rupees) on election campaign during the Lok Sabha polls, how can it (BJP) bring back black money? BJP and Modi have failed to fulfil their promises to bring back black money soon after coming to power,” he alleged.
The Congress which was on the radar of Modi and BJP’s attack on the UPA led government has taunted the saffron party for not being able to fulfil the election campaign that black money would be brought back within 100 days of the BJP being elected.
Some experts have also pointed out that under the present treaty the names might not be made public but Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted that “Today I want to share something and I am sure the people trust me when I say this. It is about black money. Please trust this Pradhan Sevak, the issue is an article of faith for me. From what I am understanding and the information that I have I am telling you that we are on the right direction.”
The question is how to analyse the tweets of the prime minister who is known as a good task master. Is he really going to take an unconventional route and try to fulfil the promise that he made to the electorates of the country? Or, with assembly polls round the corner in some states, is he using the black money issue again as proverbial carrot?
