Jaitley says maximum black money generated in UPA rule

Defending the demonetisation decision as "correct", Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said maximum black money was generated during the earlier Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government's rule.

"The steps this government has taken are right and are being implemented in the right manner," the minister told the media in Parliament House here.

Lashing out at the Congress, Jaitley said: "We are not surprised when we hear from those who ran the government between 2004 and 2014 that they do not like these steps against black money."

"The maximum black money was generated in this country between 2004 and 2014. The biggest corruption scandals pertaining to the Commonwealth Games, the 2G spectrum and the coal blocks took place during this period," he added.

Jaitley said people who did not consider these scandals to be blunders were now considering the campaign against black money and corruption to be a blunder.

Jaitley was referring to former Prime Minister and Congress's Rajya Sabha member Manmohan Singh describing the post-dmonetisation chaos as "organised plunder", which he apparently mistook as "blunder".

"This is the exact rational argument that they will put forward in the debate in Parliament as it takes place. But it's obvious that the opposition is uncomfortable with the debate and are inventing ...a ... manufacturing reason to run away from the debate," the minister said.

The Rajya Sabha on Thursday resumed discussion on the government's demonetisation move after facing repeated adjournments for the past five days.

However, the opposition again forced adjournment of the house in the post-lunch session over its demand for the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the debate.

--IANS

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