Expressing his “deep regret” to Congress president Sonia Gandhi over an allegation by a BJP task force report that she and her late husband Rajiv had accounts in Swiss banks, saffron party veteran L.K. Advani said he was happy that she had denied the charges. Mr Advani, in a letter to Mrs Gandhi, said had she denied earlier “the task force would have taken her denial into account”.
Reacting over Mr Advani’s apology to Mrs Gandhi, the Congress said it welcomed the BJP veteran’s letter to the Congress president. But information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni, while taking a dig at Mr Advani, said she thought that the senior saffron leader had taken retirement leaving space for younger people in party like Mr Arun Jaitley and Ms Sushma Swaraj.
In the letter, which was officially released by the party, Mr Advani said, “I am happy that you have denied the reports relating to you and your family alluded to in the task force’s report on black money. If these had been denied earlier the task force would have taken your denial into account. Even so, I deeply regret the distress caused to you.”
Mr Advani’s letter was in response to Mrs Gandhi’s letter in which she had denied the allegation made in the task force report released on February 1, 2011.
Meanwhile, Ms Soni said, “I thought he had retired leaving the space for younger people like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. He has been making a statement every day on different subjects... Probably, he is not having enough time to study what he is saying.”
Moreover, since there existed some unease among the party leaders, the BJP later sought to explain the real meaning of Mr Advani’s regret, as BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad said, “The letter of L.K. Advani to Sonia Gandhi expressing regret over the pain caused to her on allegations of foreign bank accounts in her family members names has to be seen in the proper context.” He said many magazines and journals published from abroad, including a magazine from Switzerland, had published such allegations in the past. “In spite of the serious nature of these allegations there was no rebuttal or denial. Therefore, in the absence of any firm denial, these allegations carried some validity,” Mr Prasad added.
“Now for the first time after so many years, Mrs Gandhi has written to Mr Advani denying the existence of any such foreign bank account. In the light of this belated denial, Mr Advani has expressed his regret,” Mr Prasad said.
The BJP appointed a four-member task force comprised S. Gurumurthy, former IB director Ajit Doval, Professor R. Vaidyanathan from IIM-Bangalore and advocate Mahesh Jethmalani.
Its brief was to unravel the amount of black money stashed by Indians in foreign banks and ways to bring it back. It has put the figure of money stashed in safe havens to be `25 lakh crores.