Seized black money will be spent on welfare of poor: Amit Shah

BJP president Amit Shah has said that the central government would spend the entire proceeds from offshore seizure of black money on welfare programmes for the poor and there was no question of transferring Rs.15 lakh into each citizen's bank account.

"Modi-ji had said (during his 2014 general election campaign) that the entire black money stashed abroad came to Rs.15 lakh per person, but that does not mean that this amount will be deposited into each person's account," Shah said in 'Aap ki Adalat' show on India TV on Saturday.

"What he meant was that the seized black money would be spent on the welfare of the poor," he clarified.

Shah also took a dig at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi for raising the issue.

"What Rahul Gandhi is saying depends on his outlook. But I can say this much: How can Rs.15 lakh be transferred to each person's account from government treasury," he asked.

On the Dadri lynching incident, Shah hit out at the Uttar Pradesh government and blamed the state police.

"If the state police acts without religious discrimination, no such riots, no such incidents will take place in Uttar Pradesh. But if, in order to garner votes, the police takes unilateral action, then there is reaction in both communities and that's the reason why such incidents happen," the BJP president said.

As for union minister Mahesh Sharma terming the lynching a 'haadsa' (accident), Shah replied: "That was a slip of tongue. Let me ask, who first went to Dadri? Rahul. Then Kejriwal went there. What had he to do with Uttar Pradesh? Then Owaisi went there. It was Mahesh Sharma's constituency. Had he not gone there, I would have taken him to task. As the local MP, it was his duty to go there and stand by the victim's family. A word came out of him, and they made a mountain out of a molehill (baat ka batangad bana rahe hain)."

On writers returning their Sahitya Akademi awards, Amit Shah said the writers and litterateurs were returning their awards because of incidents that took place in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka ruled by the Samajwadi Party and Congress respectively.

"All the writers returning their awards are protesting against the Congress and SP governments," he said.

Speaking about the ongoing Bihar assembly polls, Amit Shah admitted that the issue of development took a back seat when the issue of beef was raised in Bihar polls.

He, however, blamed Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad for raising the beef issue.

"Lalu-ji was the first to raise the issue of beef when he said there was no basic difference between beef and mutton. Naturally, the BJP will raise this issue, because it hurts the sentiments of large sections in the country.

"It was Lalu who raised this first because of vote-bank politics, and once you open up a dam, can you calculate how far the water will flow? Today, they are caught in that. They should have thought about it while breaking a dam," the BJP leader said.