Congress will be embarrassed by the black money names we reveal: Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley lashed out at the Congress over revelation of names of Indians with black money in foreign bank accounts, saying that the party would be embarrassed by the names that are revealed.

“The Congress will be embarrassed by the names when we reveal them in court,” Jaitley told NDTV in an interview. “Once we inform the court, the names will automatically come out in public; the media and the Congress got this story all wrong,” he added, referring to the media and Congress stating earlier that the Narendra Modi government told the Supreme Court on Friday that it could not disclose names with black money accounts received from foreign governments.

In a blog post titled ‘ The NDA’s approach on Black Money is doggedly persistent - Not Adventurist ’, Jaitley had said: I am a little surprised by some of the headlines in today’s newspapers which state that the NDA Government has done a U turn on the issue of black money stacked up in Swiss bank accounts. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

Let me begin by saying that the NDA Government WILL NOT withhold any information, including names of account holders who have stashed black money abroad, from the public; but the names will be revealed after following the due process of completing investigations and reaching conclusions about quantum of unaccounted money.

On the other hand, after the NDA’s submission in the Supreme Court on Friday, the Congress had accused PM Modi of “hypocrisy” on the issue of bringing back black money. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Friday sought an apology from Modi over the government’s stance in the apex court. “If there is the slightest bit of political honesty, the prime minister should apologise to the nation,” he had said.

(With inputs from IANS)