Naidu, Reddy trade charges on Rs 10,000 cr declared under IDS from Hyderabad

In response to a controversy surrounding the alleged disclosure of income of Rs 10,000 crore by an individual in Hyderabad during the recently concluded income disclosure scheme, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and YSR Congress Party President Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to end the menace of black money and corruption.

Naidu wrote a letter to Modi urging him to remove the currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations from circulation, as he believes high denomination currency notes were being used by unscrupulous elements to amass wealth in the form of black money.

The letter comes a day after Naidu declared to the media that he was going to write to the PM calling for a ban on high denomination notes. Naidu had expressed similar views in the past as well.

Telugu Desam Party workers had alleged that Reddy was the individual. In response, YSR Congress workers had said it was Naidu.

To contain black money, Naidu suggested the use of e-governance and digitisation tools in addition to promoting cashless transactions. Arresting black money generation was a necessary prerequisite for elimination poverty and inequality, Naidu said in his letter.

Meanwhile, Reddy has demanded that the Centre make the entire list of declarants in the Income Disclosure Scheme 2016 public.

On Thursday, Reddy, too, wrote a letter to the PM wondering how the CM got to know about the disclosure, when the Central Board of Direct Taxes had categorically stated that no break-ups on the declarations were shared by it.

“How is it that Mr Chandrababu Naidu alone is privy to this information? If it is true, then the person who declared the income should have been a benami of Naidu...” he countered.