NEW DELHI: With Subramamian Swamy picking on the Government’s Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian on Twitter and later before the media, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s defence of the CEA could not stop the Opposition from demanding a clarification from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the “serious allegations’’.
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Wednesday morning was beaconed with Swamy’s tweets on thye CEA heating up the social media: “Who said to US Cong(ress) on 13/3/13 the US should act against India to defend US Pharmaceuticals interests? Arvind Subramanian MoF!! Sack him!!!’’
Swamy was quoted by ANI: “I don’t even know if he (CEA) is a citizen or not but I’m sure he has a green card. There was this American Congress Committee for pharmaceutical purposes and they held a hearing to figure out India’s opinion on the matter. There he said in a statement that India was not working according to America in this matter and for that, they should be taught a lesson in WTO. How can we can such a person an advisor here?’’ In his tweet he also alleged: “Guess who encouraged Cong(Congress Party) to become rigid on GST clauses? Jaitely’s economic adviser Arvind Subramanian of Washington DC.’’
Ignoring the second part tweet, Congress spokesperson P L Punia said that the FM’s defence of Subramanian was “certainly not enough” and the Prime Minister has to come clean on Swamy’s allegations.
“The PM has to give a clarification whether the allegations are true or false. These serious allegations are not being made by the Opposition. but are coming from within the Government and its party,’’ Punia said. “If these are baseless, PM has to take action against the Rajya Sabha member (Swamy).”