Cong barb after PM talks black money at G20

Party takes a dig at Modi for unkept poll promise of retreiving black money with 100 days of coming to power

The Congress took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his speech at the G-20 summit in China on Monday saying he had failed to bring back black money stashed abroad within the promised 100 days of coming to power.

"The prime minister during his 2014 Lok Sabha poll campaign had promised the voters that if he comes to power, he would bring back all the black money stashed abroad and distribute around Rs 15 lakh each in the bank accounts of all citizens," Manish Tewari told Business Standard.

"But later on, it turned out to be only a pre-poll slogan only to be forgotten conveniently afterwards. People still ask their bankers if the promises Rs 15 lakh have been credited in the accounts," he said adding, "the prime minister and the BJP lied to the voters."

The Congress leader wondered if Modi as BJP prime ministerial nominee did not know about the tax havens abroad and international money laundering cartels. "The idea to end tax havens abroad is a noble one but did the prime minister not know about it when he made the poll promise," said Tewari.

Noting the previous UPA government had taken many steps like tax information sharing agreements and double taxation avoidance pacts with several countries to curb black money, Tewari claimed the centre had done nothing in the past two years.

"The government has started a scheme to curb domestic black money but has nothing to deal with black money deposited in foreign banks," he said. Stating the Modi government had completed 827 days, the Congress leader said that prime minster should apologize to the people eight times.

In 2014 Modi then Gujarat chief minister used to hammer the UPA which was facing charges of corruption over Commonwealth Games (CWG), 2G and coal block allocations.