Cong hits back: NDA helped those who stashed black money

He said the UPA Government had made amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act,2002 to arm the agencies with more teeth to unearth black money.

“The BJP is claiming that about $500 billion to $1,400 billion belonging to Indians has been deposited in Swiss banks. Media reports,however,quoting one annual report of Swiss banking association have put the figure at $1,500 to $1,900 billion. Now,which one is correct? We have checked the official website of Swiss banking association and there is no mention of that annual report there,” Mukherjee said.

“We have asked the Indian ambassador in Switzerland to take up the matter with the Swiss authorities and find out the details of Indian accounts. But my question is: the BJP was in power for six years and what did they do in this regard?” he added.

He asserted that it was the UPA Government which was trying to become the member of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — an international agency comprising many countries that has imposed stringent laws for financial regulations and also share information among themselves about assets of individuals.

In New Delhi,Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal said,“We want to ask him (Advani),why his government did away with the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) and bring in Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in which the punishment is compoundable.”

Sibal said though bringing back illegal money was a “laudable objective”,Advani was “politicising” the issue to get the support of the middle class as his party had lost the support of all sections.