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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. PTI

New Delhi: ‘Show us the money you have helped bring back to India, don’t try to fool the country with fringe matters’. This seems to be the message from the Congress to the BJP on the issue of black money.

The party has been uncharacteristically combative over it ever since Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dropped the hint that a UPA minister could be on the first list of names of account holders in foreign banks and it appears set to nail the NDA government’s ‘lies’ on substantive aspects.

Black money was a big poll issue for the BJP in the run-up to the 2014 general elections. On 17 April, the then BJP president Rajnath Singh had said that black money would be brought back within 100 days if their party was voted to power. The current status has been a part of a series of statements by the BJP leadership that has totally confused their intention to do so. The party had conveniently pushed it on the backburner till the Congress decided to bring it up during its assembly election campaign.

“The BJP had loudly proclaimed that the account of every individual would be credited with Rs 15 lakh and the nation eagerly waits for Shri Narendra Modi to fulfil his promise,” said Ajay Maken, Congress media chief. “It is a worrying development if the BJP is trying to avoid delivering on the promise. It was a major pillar of the party’s campaign,” he added.

What has emboldened a struggling Congress is the NDA government filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court last Friday, seeking modification of the court’s July, 2011 order where the latter had directed the government to reveal the names of black money account holders. When the UPA government had conveyed its reservations against naming people, Supreme Court had then maintained that despite the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAA), the government can go ahead and disclose the names of account holders who have money stashed abroad. Modi had even accused the ruling UPA of “paying mere lip service” on the issue of bringing back black money, on Twitter.

Though Jaitley has gone the extra mile to explain that it was the NDA that set up a SC directed Special Investigation Team (SIT) - “the names will be revealed after following the due process of completing investigations and reaching conclusions about quantum of unaccounted money,” he wrote on his Facebook page on 18 October - but in his recent interviews, he has chosen to keep everyone guessing that the name of a high profile former UPA minister is there on the list. That’s why vested interests are trying to scuttle the list being made public, and that seems to be backfiring on the NDA.

“Are his statements befitting that of a finance minister? If he has guts he should stop selective leaks and release names of those who have illegal accounts abroad,” dared Digvijaya Singh, senior Congress leader. This ‘U’ turn in the Supreme Court has brought back the NDA to exactly where the UPA was in 2011.

The Congress has also been crying itself hoarse that out of the near 800 names on the list, the BJP wants to divulge only a 100-odd names. And the pressure is being mounted from the Congress on all fronts possible. “If I or you had indulged in this kind of falsehood with a promise to bring back money stashed abroad and distribute it among the masses, we would have been booked under Section 420 for cheating,” said Abhishek Manu Singhvi, national spokesperson for the Congress.

After the inertia for a few months post-May this year, this seems to be the first big issue that the Congress is gunning for.

During the election campaign of general elections, it was the BJP that went hammer and tongs against the UPA, but the tables have turned now. It was Congress President Sonia Gandhi who took the lead in exposing the hollowness of the BJP’s 100 day claim of bringing back black money. After having lost two important states like Maharashtra and Haryana, Congress realises that it stands nothing to lose from raking the issue. The ball is now in BJP’s court.