'Black money embarrasses individuals, not party'

Amid speculation that the list of names of black money account holders could include a former UPA minister, ex-finance minister P Chidambaram on Friday said such individual transgressions should not embarrass the Congress as the party had not authorised him to keep that account.

“If there is a name of a former minister it will embarrass that person. He is not keeping that account for the party. These are individual transgressions, individual violations of the law, the individual should be embarrassed. Why should the party be embarrassed?” he told NDTV in an interview.

Chidambaram was responding to finance minister Arun Jaitley’s remarks that the Congress will be embarrassed once the names of people holding illicit foreign accounts are made public.

He also reiterated that Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi should “speak more” to the public and the media.

Asked if a non-Gandhi could become the Congress president, he said, “I think so. Someday yes”, but was quick to add, “I do not know” when asked about its timeline.

Chidambaram also said the reorganisation of the party was due for the larger task of being an “effective, strong, robust and true opposition” to the government.