Cong Invites BJP for Serious Talks on Black-money Issue
Terming BJP’s black money figures as based on “bogus” sources, the Congress has invited the saffron party to a serious debate on the issue.
“Capital flight from India is a serious issue and should be debated seriously. But Mr L K Advani’s data is very shaky and is based on mostly bogus sources,” Congress Election Coordinator and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh said.
Needless to mention, Advani on April 17 released a report of BJP’s task force that put Indian black money stashed abroad between $500 billion and $ 1.4 trillion (more than the size of the Indian economy).
‘Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report of the Washington-based Center for International Policy was the only credible source of information for the BJP task force. All other sources that Advani used to arrive at the capital flight data are “bogus”,’ Ramesh said.
According to Ramesh, the GFI report arrives at a figure of USD 100 billion for “illicit financial flows” from India between 2002 and 2006, while several Indian economists he has interacted with on the issue suggest that the report talked only about the gross outflows.
“If net outflows are matched with the capital account, there is a negative net outflow,” Ramesh said.
The Congress election strategist also said that even in the GFI study, there are “very serious questions” on the methodology.
