Use Swiss banking 'crisis' to recover blackmoney: Advani

NEW DELHI: India should take advantage of the virtual crisis gripping the Swiss banking sector due to global campaign against bank secrecy laws to deal with the blackmoney issue, BJP leader L K Advani has said.

The opposition leader lamented that the Indian government has not shown interest in acting against the menace of blackmoney and there has been no follow up to the White Paper brought out in this regard last year.

"In sharp contrast to India's indifference to this matter, there are reports about a virtual crisis having been precipitated in the banking sector of Switzerland because of the global campaign against banking secrecy laws initiated by some powerful western countries.

"In the global war against black money, this would be a great help. One can only hope that India takes full advantage of these developments," Advani said on his blog.

He said both corruption and black money continue to corrode India's polity and governance, more particularly in the last nine years.

The BJP leader quoted an international news agency report, the thrust of which was "Even today, few Swiss would like to discuss the fact that much of the country's prosperity was built on the bankers helping foreigners evade taxes."

The former deputy Prime Minister, who had carried out a nation-wide Yatra on the issues of black money and corruption in 2011, had in his earlier blog last month said, "White Paper on Black Money notwithstanding, not a single paisa has been recovered."

He said his blog highlighted how BJP's sustained campaign against black money had forced the UPA Government to present a White Paper on the issue.

"This White Paper rightly affirmed that success of the country's 'inclusive development strategy critically depends on the capacity of our society to root out the evil of corruption and black money from its very foundations'."