Points made by Shri L.K. Advani

Points made by Shri L.K. Advani, Chairman, BJP Parliamentary Party, while talking to the media at Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad

It was in 2008 that I had written a letter to the Prime Minister urging the government to pursue the issue of black money stashed abroad by Indians, in a manner to get that enormous wealth back to India as has been done by the USA and Germany in respect of their own nationals.

The NDA has been pursuing this matter ever since and we have been of the view that our government has done nothing substantial in this regard. Occasionally they even talked about double taxation treaties being an obstacle in this regard.

Today, Mr Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has made a revealing statement to the Press Trust of India. I am citing below the six points that he has made in his statement. Together they amount to a serious indictment of the Government of India’s approach to this problem and fully vindictive of our criticism of the government for its lackadaisical approach to this issue.

Points made Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, to PTI:

1. There are Indian names in the Swiss Bank lists in possession by WikiLeaks.

2. There are more Indian depositors than of any other nationality. There is no reason why India should not be aggressive.

3. India is losing to foreign banks much more per capita than Germany which is pursuing the issue very aggressively.

4. India’s response to the WikiLeaks cables was “one of the worst in the world”. Its response was “a clear attempt to mislead the nation on what the cables were.”

5. Double taxation has nothing to do with amounts deposited in Swiss Banks or other tax havens, which Assange has rightly said is assets hiding.

6. Stashing black money away in foreign banks is much worse than local corruption. When Indian money is pushed offshore, then every time they are selling rupees and the result is that the currency of the nation is debased. Everything for Indians becomes more expensive as a result of that transfer.

Mr Julian Assange had earlier claimed that he had handed over bank accounts by a former banker Rudolf Elmer, and that names in the documents include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates - from both sides of the Atlantic.

I demand the Government of India make a point by point response to the issues raised by Mr Julian Assange