Modi govt fulfilled promises on corruption, black money, says Amit Shah

The Narendra Modi government has fulfilled its twin promises of providing corruption-free government and unearthing black money, BJP president Amit Shah on Sunday asserted as he hailed it for recovering over Rs 65,000 crore under the income declaration scheme.

Claiming that the government has recovered over Rs 1.40 lakh crore of black money and other undisclosed assets in India and abroad during the two-and-a-half years that it has been in power, he said the latest recovery marks the beginning of "Bharat Uday" (India rising) as this money will be spent on the development of villages, the poor, farmers and the youth. "In the history of independent India, no government has been able to recover black money to such an extent," he said in a statement referring to Rs 65,250 crore disclosure claimed to have been made under the scheme and added, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a short span of time has been able to fulfil his promises of providing corruption-free government and recovering black money."

"This is an unprecedented victory of the Modi government over black money," Shah said. Besides the Rs 65,250 crore money disclosed under the Income Declaration Scheme-2016, the government has recovered Rs 56,378 crore of undisclosed earnings in the Income Tax department's search and survey drive and seized Rs 1,986 crore cash too, Shah said as he cited other recoveries to say that the total money recovered has been Rs 1.40 lakh crore.

BJP believes the scheme's success will be politically handy for it at a time when it is facing some crucial state polls and the opposition has often attacked it over the issue of recovering black money, a key plank of Modi during the Lok Sabha polls in 2014. Shah also cited the "transparent and corruption-free" auction of coal blocks and the government's efforts to plug gaps in subsidy transfer to claim that now nobody can cast an "evil eye" on the country's treasury.

The government has provided cooking gas connection to over 5 crore poor women after over 1 crore persons gave up their LPG subsidy on Modi's call, he said.