In a hard hitting reaction to the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate's statement issued in Mumbai on Friday, he said "I am afraid that Mr Advani's 100-day plan looks to me like a smokescreen. I wonder whether he is unwittingly alerting those who have deposits abroad to re-arrange their affairs in the next four weeks before a new government is sworn in.”


He said that "I am afraid Mr Advani is doing more harm than good by repeatedly raising this issue, especially when he has been informed about the efforts being made by the government."


Chidambaram said that the government has made "significant" progress in acquiring information from the German Central Tax Office.

"I am not at liberty to disclose the progress made because there are still some procedural formalities required by the German Tax Office," he adding at appropriate time, he was sure the Indian government would be able to release the information that would be obtained from the German Tax Office.


Chidambaram said that Advani continued to "mystify" the issues relating to capital flying out of the country. He said no one denied that over the years some people have illegally taken money out of the country and kept it in banks and other places which were protected by strong laws relating to bank secrecy.


The latest of Advani, he said, was the report of a so-called high level task force.


"I am afraid the report of the Task Force is no more than the rehashing of already known information to which they have added some ingenious arithmetic. I do not think any credibility can be attached to the numbers contained in the report."


The actual number, Chambray said, may be higher or may be lower. The real point was what has the government done and can the government do to unearth these illegal deposits abroad.


He said he would point out that in the six year period of the NADA government, they did absolutely nothing. "I wonder what Mr Adan was doing and his conscience was not aroused when his government did absolutely nothing.”


As far as UPA government was concerned, Chidambaram, who was Finance Minister for over four years, said it had taken a number of initiatives.


Firstly, he said as explained in his letter to Advani on May 16 last year, government was already working with the German Central Tax Office to procure the information relating to deposits in LGT Bank in Liechtenstein. 

Secondly, India is part of the consultative process in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) where India has supported the OCED formulation that no country should be permitted to decline to share information on grounds of bank secrecy.


Thirdly, it was during the UPA government that they had pushed India's membership in the financial action task force, "where we are close to being admitted as a full member".

New Delhi, Home Minister P Chidambaram, Union Ministers Mani Shankar Aiyar and E V K S Elangovan and PCC president K V Thangabalu are among 14 candidates announced by the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections from Tamil Nadu.

Union Minister V Narayanaswamy will be the party’s candidate for the lone seat in the Union Territory of Puducherry.

As per the seat sharing agreement with the ruling DMK, the Congress will contest 15 out of the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry.

Kanchipuram is the lone seat for which candidate was not announced today.

AICC sources said the candidate for Kanchipuram will be nominated either tonight or tomorrow.

Mr Chidambaram and Mr Aiyar will seek re-election from Sivaganga and Mayiladuthurai respectively.
Though the AICC has generally decided not to field PCC presidents, Mr Thangabalu was given exemption to contest from the Salem seat.

Following is the list of candidates : Arani- M Krishnaswamy, Salem - K V Thangabalu, Erode - E V K S Elangovan, Tiruppur - S K Kharventhan, Coimbatore - R Prabhu, Dindigul - N S V Chithan, Tiruchirapalli - Ms Charu Bala, Cuddalore - K S Alagiri, Mayiladuthurai - Mani Shankar Aiyar, Sivaganga - P Chidambaram, Theni - J M Aaron Rashid, Virudunagar - G Sundaravadivelu, Tenkasi (SC) - Vallai Pandi and Tirunelveli - Rama Subbu.

New Delhi, Mar 23 : In a sharp reaction to the criticism of the Central Government over the IPL issue, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Monday hit back at the BCCI and the BJP, saying that the Cricket tournament was a "shrewd combination of sport and business" and there was no need to add politics to it.

A day after the BCCI announced that the second edition of the IPL was being shifted to a foreign country because of security issues in India, Chidambaram told a press conference that while he had no comment on that decision, he had read a number of statements which obliquely criticised the Central government. "These statements require an answer. Some unwarranted comments also deserve a rejoinder," he added.

Taking on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had described the shifting of the IPL out of India as a "national shame", the Home Minister said that most people in India thought that the Gujarat communal riots of 2002 were a national shame.

To another BJP leader Arjun Jaitley's comments that the decision will send a negative message to the world and that the Congress-ruled states have been non-cooperative towards holding of IPL in India, Chidambaram said, "I know that Mr Jaitley has a penchant for exaggeration, but because he also wears the cap of the president of the DDCA he seems to have gone overboard this time."

"Perhaps he has forgotten that several leaders of the NDA had expressed the view that the schedule of the IPL should be postponed until after the elections," Chidambaram said.

On BCCI President Shashank Manohar's claim that the government's attitude forced the organisers to move the IPL out of the country, Chidambaram said, "If he was referring to the central government, the remark is entirely unwarranted. It is contrary to the letter of March 4, 2009, wherein N Srinivasan, Secretary BCCI, said 'we shall not ask for central paramilitary forces to provide security for matches'.

"If Manohar was referring to the State Governments alone, I would like to remind him that State Governments are ultimately responsible for maintaining law and order and providing security and one has to respect the judgment made by the State Governments in this behalf," he said.

"Chief Ministers are not backroom wizards. They have to take frontline responsibility for providing security. The Central Government has to respect their judgment. I may add that every state has expressed its reservations and also made it clear that full security can and will be provided after May 16, 2009," he said.

Jammu/New Delhi, March 19  In the wake of intelligence reports indicating an increased threat to India from Pakistan based-terrorist groups in the run-up to and during the April-May general elections, Home Minister P. Chidambaram Wednesday asked political leaders to exercise “prudence” and “restraint” during their campaigning.

“Political leaders have to be careful when they move around during election times. We have the example of good elections in Jammu and Kashmir, where the casualties were low… I advise political leaders to exercise prudence and restraint in their movements,” Chidambaram said at a press conference in Jammu.

“And I am confident that every one will be protected,” Chidambaram asserted.
Indian intelligence agencies have intercepted “electronic chatter” that indicates an increased threat from Pakistan-based terrorist groups in the coming months, government sources in New Delhi said.
“There is an increased threat from Pakistan-based terror groups in the run up and during the elections,” said highly-placed government sources. “There is increased chatter that points to heightened terror threat to India during this period.”
“There could be an attempt to target major political leaders,” the sources added.
The threat perception also emanates from evidence that Pakistan’s spy agency Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) has not stopped doing business with anti-India terrorists, the sources said.
India last week replied to Pakistan’s 30 questions relating to the Nov 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. It is awaiting “credible action” by Islamabad to punish the perpetrators of the attacks and dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in its territory.
New Delhi believes that the political turmoil in Pakistan should not distract from the process of bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai atrocity to justice.
“Certainly, we would hope that those things (bringing perpetrators to justice and dismantling terror infrastructure) would happen and happen as soon as possible and we will do everything we can to encourage that process,” Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon had told reporters here Tuesday.
“We will continue down that road with whoever is willing to help us to achieve our goal,” Menon said.

New Delhi, Mar. 14 : Home Minister P Chidambaram has issued a legal notice against CPI MLA Gunasekaran for alleging that he had supported allocation of 500 acres of government land to a private company in his constituency Sivaganga.

It is a total lie to say that 500 acres of land has been gifted to a private company.

Some political parties are accustomed to reeling out lies and false charges for the sake of politics. My name has been dragged unnecessarily over an issue between the government and a private firm, said Chidambaram.

On March 12, Gunasekaran reportedly led an agitation against Chidambaram at Karaikudi to protest allocation of land in Kazhanivasal located his constituency Sivganga district.

Chidambaram also said that even the Sivaganga district collector had issued a statement denying land allocation for a private firm.

Only a recommendation had been made to allocate 3.5 acres to a private firm on lease basis, as there was a potential for the company to give employment to 1,500 people, he said.

Chidambaram also revealed that the MLA had praised him for his role in developing Sivaganga during the last three years, and even sought his recommendation for some work.