Swiss bank Account - A promise from Advani

BJP targets Swiss bank accounts
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 29
Switzerland is known as much for its chocolate and cheese as its secret bank accounts. And the BJP president Lal Krishna Advani today set the cat among the pigeons by demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raise the issue forcefully at the G-20 summit in London.

Mr Advani also declared that the NDA, if voted to power, will bring back all Indian money held in secret bank accounts in tax havens abroad. He was, however, silent on the question of giving amnesty to the account holders.

Congress spokesman Kapil Sibal, in his initial reaction, wondered why the BJP chief never raised the issue in Parliament. “ He could have raised it in Parliament and the PM would have replied,” he said.

US federal agencies, however, have already offered to reduce penalties and no criminal prosecution provided US account holders voluntarily come forward to disclose amounts stashed in Swiss banks and pay taxes at reduced rates during the next six months. Other countries are expected to follow the US example.

Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws have come under increasing scrutiny and Switzerland’s largest private bank, UBS, was forced, this year, to divulge details to US agencies investigating tax fraud and tax evasion.

Reports last week quoted Swiss bankers to confirm that top executives have been asked not to travel abroad because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.

Janata Dal (U) chief Sharad Yadav had also raised the issue of Indians’ accounts in Swiss banks, which, he alleged, amounted to 13 times the foreign debt and eight times the national budget. If the money is brought back to the country, he had said, India would be able to repay all the foreign debts and still be left with a huge, foreign exchange reserves.

The Swiss Banking Association was reported last year as stating that Indians had a whopping US $ 1,456 billion in secret accounts, which was more than the balance held by all other nationalities taken together. According to the report, Russians held US $470 billion, UK $ 390 billion and China $ 96 billion.

Quick to borrow the issue of secret bank accounts abroad from the Left and JD-U who raised it first, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate LK Advani said the NDA, if voted, would take all legal and executive measures to get the illegal money back to India for investment.

“I don’t expect anything from the UPA, because to act on this front, the government has to be clean,” said Advani, demanding a cabinet meeting on the issue before the PM left for London.

The BJP is, meanwhile, geared to fan the issue which Advani described as a “political storm”. Party’s state units will on April 6 conduct mass polls on the subject; BJP chief ministers will seek from the Centre details of secret account holders from their states and the party will form a taskforce to suggest ways of reclaiming the secret money, which the BJP today compared to RDX that can fund global terror and destroy financial institutions.

Interesting was to see Advani citing the Wikipedia to claim Rs 25 lakh crore to Rs 70 lakh crore worth of Indian wealth was hoarded in Swiss accounts and other tax havens. He questioned India’s silence on the issue, saying: “Last year, I had written to the PM about the need to get the names of Indians, presumed to have secret accounts in LGT Bank in Liechtenstein in Germany. What I got was an evasive reply from the then Finance Minister.”

The BJP also referred to Transparency International’s comment that India had maintained “a stoic silence over the issue”, and said secret Indian money equalled 10 times country’s overseas debt, and 50 to 120 per cent of its GDP. Earlier, the NDA partner JDU had also made similar claims but now the entire alliance seems united on the issue, with Advani today saying what India could do with that much money: “It’s sufficient to waive off entire farmer debt; build world-class roads; eliminate power shortage and ensure potable water to all villages.”

The BJP leader described the matter as urgent, saying illicit money was a mix of political bribes, crime money and venal business. Here, he cited National Security Adviser MK Narayanan’s earlier comment that terror money could be operating through fund flows.

“If people elect us, we assure them of joining the global effort to end banking secrecy and getting back sovereign wealth of India,” Advani said.

Well, well, well.
At last our politicians are moving on the corruption front.
Better late than never.
Advani has promised to fulfil one of our demands that he
bring back all the tainted money stashed away in Switzerland
I just wonder, what he was doing this last six months.
The e-mails were doing the round for the last 6 months.
Why did they not take it up in parliament then?
No, because, their near and dear ones were involved.
Now that elections are here, they can promise us the moon and fail in all their promises and get away with it.
The next elections are 5 years away.
By that time the people will forget this promise, they hope.
People say
You can fool some of the people all the time
All the people some of the time but
You cannot fool all the people all the time.
Our politicians are trying the 3rd on us.
But what about our second demand that he declare that no criminals have been given tickets from his party to fight the elections?

Radheshyam