New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley cut short his visit to China by a day and returned home on Sunday night. There are speculations that Mr Jaitley came earlier because he wants his party to act and rein in Dr Subramanian Swamy, who has launched a no-holds-barred attack on finance ministry’s senior officials such as chief economic adviser Arv-ind Subramanian and economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das.
Earlier Dr Swamy had attacked RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, who announced last week that he will not seek a second term. There were media reports that Mr Jaitley may even meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Dr Swamy’s attack on senior officials in his ministry.
Mr Jaitley was on a five-day visit to China mainly to attend the first meeting of the Board of Governors of newly formed Asian Infrastr-ucture Investment Bank (AIIB). Mr Jaitley was scheduled to meet Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei on Monday but the meeting was advan-ced to take place Sunday itself. His other engagements were also advanced to Sunday.
Meanwhile, Mr Jaitley will meet industry associations on Tuesday to clear doubts about the four-month window provided to holders of undeclared wealth to come clean. He will explain provisions as well as clear misgivings about the one-time compliance window provided to dom-estic black money holders to pay their taxes and escape harsher penalties, as per agency reports. The domestic amnesty scheme will remain open for four months — June 1 to September 30 — for filing of declarations. Payments towards taxes, surcharge and penalty will have to be made latest by November 30.
