Finance minister Yashwant Sinha yesterday defended the double-taxation treaty with Mauritius and ruled out any review of the pact. He also lashed out at his detractors, saying they were part of a larger campaign to derail the process of economic reforms.
The finance minister warned that the government would not succumb to such pressures and that it stayed committed to its economic policies and restoring investor confidence.
Addressing mediapersons just prior to his departure to the United States, Sinha released a statement which said, "This sinister design has to be nipped in the bud. The purpose of this statement is to allay public apprehensions, if any, about this government's economic policies and to restore investors' confidence, which is sought to be shaken by malicious rumour mongering of which I am the latest victim."
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Sinha, who will be accompanied by N K Singh, secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, will also be participating in road shows being organised by the Federation of Indian Industries in Chicago and the confederation of Indian Industry in San Francisco.
Sinha will also deliver the key note address at an India-specific seminar being hosted by the Stanford University.
The finance minister's retort came in response to some news reports alleging that he had doctored policy to favour the fund managed by his daughter-in-law, Puneeta Kumar Sinha.
Sinha's daughter-in-law is an executive director and senior portfolio manager of CIBC, Oppenheimer, which through its subsidiary, Advantage Advisers, is the fund manager for India Fund Inc.
Denying any such motive, the minister said, "The success of the Indian economy during the last 26 months under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has obviously become an eyesore for some people. Having failed to stem the tide of economic reforms by fair and democratic means, these people have decided to hit below the belt by launching a personal vilification campaign against me."
He then went on to add, "They believe that by demoralising me they will disturb the functioning of the ministry of finance, destabilise the economy and the reforms programme."
According to him, there was a systematic campaign "to diminish me in the eyes of the Prime Minister and to create a situation wherein I would be either dropped or changed".