THIRUVANANATHAPURAM: It seems controversies refuse to leave Shashi Tharoor alone! Once again the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. And the allegations levelled against him this time round appear to be of gigantic proportions: that he is one among the three Indian MPs who have allegedly stashed money in Swiss banks. The controversy started with Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently evading a direct answer to the question whether there were any MPs in the IT Department list of those who have amassed black money abroad. The Minister had then replied that the names could be revealed only when the department initiates prosecution proceedings. However, BJP leader LK Advani on Saturday stated in Mumbai that the names of three MPs, one each from Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, had found place in the list of 700 Indians who have stashed funds in Swiss bank accounts. Trouble started for Tharoor when social networking sites, blogs and even some online media started discussions on the issue. While many on Facebook and some other blogs speculated Tharoor as the Kerala MP, an online Malayalam magazine went a bit further when it ran a story on the issue. The Malayalam online edition of a national magazine in its November 3 issue made indirect references to the MP and even alleged that his henchmen had approached the media organisation asking them not to drag their leader’s name into the issue. However, Tharoor, who resigned from his post as Minister of State for External Affairs in April 2010 following allegations in connection with the Kochi IPL franchise, has cleared the air through his pet media platform, Twitter: “I have no Swiss account, legal or illegal,”he said. To a query whether he would initiate legal action against the daily, he said: “Sure, I haven’t seen the website. Send me a link and I will gladly sue them for libel.” He has never earned black money in his life, so he wouldn’t need to stash any in Switzerland, he added.Meanwhile, sources close to him told ‘Express’ that the current controversy is unwanted and that Tharoor was planning legal action against The Sunday Indian. ‘’While working in Geneva for the UN he had an account in a bank there, which was closed when he moved to New York later. At present he has no such account there,’’ they said.They said that Tharoor had openly declared his foreign bank account at the time of elections. ‘’He has an account in the HSBC bank, Dubai, which was also informed to the Prime Minister while he was inducted to the Union Cabinet. He still retains this account which is a privilege of NRIs,’’ they said.
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