'To Put It Bluntly, Shri Advani, You Are Lying'

Dear Shri Advani,

I have always been amused by the sources you cite in your speeches inParliament and outside. But your use of some obscure and unauthenticatedInternet source to raise the pitch on Indian money stashed away in Swissbanks is really the limit. It is not just amusing. It is shocking, comingfrom a leader of your purported stature.

To put it bluntly, Shri Advani, you are lying. That your entire edifice ofnumbers on the black money issue is a total hoax has been demonstrated mostconvincingly by two of India's most distinguished economists -- AshokDesai and BibekDebroy -- who have both been critical of the Congress as well in the past onvarious issues.

That there are Indians with Swiss bank accounts is incontrovertible -- manyof them, incidentally, may well be BJP supporters and part of your electionfunding may well be coming from these sources. There can also be no dispute onthe fact that we must try and get this money back. We have had amnesty schemesin the past -- some have succeeded and some have not. But I would like to askyou a straight question -- in the six years that you were Home Minister, can youtell the country one single step you took to get Indian accounts in Swiss banksmade transparent?

Your use of 'ISI' data to claim that poverty has increased during2004/05-08/09 is another example of complete bogusness. I think you may well bereferring to a study done by Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan and not byour prestigious Indian Statistical Institute. The study of ISI, Kolkata stops at2004/05 and whatever conclusions you have drawn from that study are completelyfalse. I have already written to your aide Sudheendra Kulkarni on this issue. Iattach a copy of the email I have sent him.

Goebbels believed that if you keep repeating a lie several times, people willbegin to believe it. Your ideological brotherhood has perfected this dictum.

With regards,

Jairam Ramesh