Can Bring Back Stash Cash in 2 Wks: Subramanian Swamy

COIMBATORE: BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Sunday opposed the raising of FDI cap on insurance and suggested that he could do a better job than the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in bringing back the money illegally deposited by Indians in foreign banks.

“If given the helm of Union Finance Ministry for a fortnight, I will bring back the Rs 120 lakh crore illegally deposited by Indians in foreign banks and send over 200 defaulters to jails,” he said, while addressing a gathering on Indian Economy at PSG Institute of Management.

Opposing the government’s recent decision to raise the FDI cap in insurance to 49 per cent, he said that he would support it only when a level playing field was created. He said that it was unfair to hope Indian companies paying 15 to 18 per cent interest on loans could compete with companies like WalMart. Swamy suggested scrapping of income tax altogether to weed out corruption. He said that I-T contributed around `2 lakh crore per year. “If the black money is reclaimed, there will be no need to pay taxes for 60 years to come,” he said. The deficit caused by abolishing I-T could be compensated via proper auctioning of the 2G spectrum and coal blocks, he said. “Had the government auctioned the resources properly, it would have contributed five times the revenue provided by I-T,” he said. Alleging that Sonia Gandhi was the most corrupt person in the country, Swamy said he had been making huge efforts to get her arrested in the National Herald news paper acquisition case.

Meanwhile, speaking on the 2G spectrum case, he said, “Apart from former telecom minister A Raja and MP K Kanimozhi, former finance minister P Chidambram, who has escaped all these days with the help of lawyers, will be arrested before this December.”

Batting for e-governance to combat corruption, he said that India had become a one-dimensional materialistic society. When questioned about TN fishermen issue, he said he had personally spoken to Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during his visit to Colombo and had got assurance that all arrested fishermen would be released at the earliest.

Speaking about PM Modi’s tough stand at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on food safety issue, he said India could increase its agricultural exports against the will of EU and the US only when all the rivers in India were connected and agricultural yield was doubled.