Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday hit out at former Union minister P Chidambaram over the chargesheet filed against him and his family for allegedly failing to disclose foreign assets to tax authorities, reported The Indian Express. She called it the “Nawaz Sharif moment” of the Congress party.
Sitharaman was referring to the former prime minister of Pakistan being disqualified from his post because of corruption charges against him and his family in the Panama Papers case.
“For some time now we have been hearing a lot of action by the [Income Tax] authorities against former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and his family,” Sitharaman said at a press conference in Delhi. “In India, for the Congress party, this is the Nawaz Sharif moment.” She also dared the Congress President Rahul Gandhi to “tell the people of India if he is going to investigate this senior leader of the party, for not having disclosed income held abroad”, according to IANS.
She accused Chidambaram of not disclosing investments to tax authorities, violating the Black Money Law implemented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reported The Indian Express.
Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah also spoke about the alleged non-disclosure of assets by Chidambaram. “I-T estimates illegal assets held by UPA’s FM to be to the tune of 3 Bn dollars!,” he tweeted.
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