Discussion on Black Money Today
The first working day of the winter session of the parliament saw the Black Money issue being the focal point. The Congress party joined hands with Trinamool Congress (TMC) to seek questions from the government regarding the issue. The opposition stressed on the fact that during its Lok Sabha campaign the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) had promised the citizens to bring back the black money within 100 days should it come into power.
The Lok Sabha echoed with the chants of “100 days are over where is the black money?”. The scene in Rajya Sabha was no different with TMC teaming up with JDU and Samajwadi Party (SP) to raise the issue. As a result the house was adjourned for 40 minutes. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Parliamentary Affairs minister Venkaiah Naidu gave their assurances to the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha respectively. The issue was again brought into limelight when Derek O’Brien was quoted as saying “The Government has made some assurances outside the House on bringing back black money. But no black money has come…There was a lot of hope on this issue, but the government is not delivering. There has to be some structured discussion on this issue. This is not about one or two political parties but all the parties.” Outside the House, SP chief Mulayam attacked the government saying, “They had promised to bring back black money in 100 days”.
Responding to the opposition, BJP said that they were ready for discussion but the opposition merely wanted to create “hungama”. Naidu also added that the government had nothing to hide and that it had done a lot in the past 6 months to bring back the black money. The issue is likely to be the center of attraction on Wednesday as well when both the houses meet again.
