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The verbal duel between Finance Minister P Chidamabaram and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha intensified on Monday, with the latter saying that “Chidambaram will have to be born again to match my record as a Finance Minister.”
Sinha, a former Finance Minister in the National Democratic Alliance government, was reacting to Chidambaram recently questioning Sinha’s performance as Finance Minister, saying it was “such that he had to demit the office on July 1, 2002.”
He has said that Sinha was attacking him just to “remain relevant in his party”. He was commenting on Sinha’s 18-point poser to Chidambaram on the “poor” state of the country finances.
On Monday, at a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, Sinha accused Chidambaram of indulging in ‘tax terrorism’, and contested the UPA Government’s claim that the fiscal deficit would stay at 4.6 per cent.
The senior BJP leader said Chidmabaram had indulged in ‘Budget frauds’ to keep the fiscal deficit at 4.6 per cent. “First, he savagely cut the Plan expenditure by ₹80,000 crore this year. Another fraud lies in the fact that he has transferred ₹60,000 crore to upstream oil companies as subsidy burden.”
He also lashed out at Chidambaram for making tax administration ‘extortionary’ by asking for advance tax. “He made public sector undertakings pay more dividends than were due and appropriated ₹ 20,000 crore from Coal India,” Sinha alleged, adding that the UPA government was leaving behind an economy “which is in a worse crisis than ever before”.
On black money, Sinha said “the 17-18 names submitted recently in a sealed envelope to the Supreme Court have been with lying with the Government for the past three years. Why didn’t they move matters earlier? Chidambaram should tell the country why it is difficult to reveal all the names,” he said. He ridiculed the “stiff letter” written recently to the Swiss authorities at a time when the “Government has lost moral authority”.
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