New Delhi: The government came under a blistering attack in the Rajya Sabha on the contentious issue of black money, with Congress asking it to apologise before people for 'selling lies' or else fulfil the poll promise made to them.
Initiating a discussion on black money, deputy leader of Congress Anand Sharma on Wednesday said that when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were in the opposition, they had ‘misled' the country by making tall promises of bringing back the black money stashed away abroad.
Sharma said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during BJP's poll campaign, had claimed that black money was to the tune of Rs 85 lakh crore.
He said Modi had also said that black money stashed abroad is equal to five Union budgets and that it was enough to put Rs 15 lakh in the account of all Indian citizens.
The Congress leader said that after assuming office, there has been a change in stance of the Prime Minister and now the quantum of black money is no longer known.
"Today, November 26, 2014, exactly six months after the government has taken over, there is a three sixty degree turn on the issue...Earlier everything was known, now nothing is known," Sharma said.
He claimed that leaders of the ruling party were ‘neither sincere nor serious' in their talk about black money earlier.
Taking a dig at BJP's election slogan, he said ‘achche din (good days)' have come and people are waiting for Rs 15 lakh to be put in their accounts as promised to them.
He said that then BJP chief Rajnath Singh, now the Union Home Minister, had said that if BJP is voted to power, black money would be brought back within hundred days.
Sharma claimed that the UPA government had done a lot of work on the issue of black money.
"What additional information has the government got in the last six months apart from the information that the UPA was able to obtain," he asked.
He asked the government to act and fulfil the poll promises and if they cannot they should apologise to the people saying, "We sold lies but now we will try as a government.”
