BJP on Tuesday declared the result of the 'referendum' on the issue of retrieving the black money.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday declared the result of the 'referendum' on the issue of retrieving the black money, allegedly stashed in Swiss banks. The results hardly came as a surprise. It said 98 per cent of the voters supported the idea.
The party's state leaders were gung-ho about the positive reply given by the masses, and suggested that BJP's prime ministerial candidate LK Advani had taken up the right issue in the times of this economic crisis.
Vote counting in-charge and BJP legal cell convenor JJ Patel said, "In all, 26,01,486 people had cast their votes. Of these, over 25 lakh, about 98 per cent, agreed that there was a large amount of Indian money in foreign banks which should be brought back." He added that 68,556 people were not in favour of the idea, while 33,000 votes were found invalid.
However, Patel and other leaders of the party dodged questions on the actual possibility of getting the black money back in India. "Our leader Advaniji has proposed the concept, so it must be possible," Patel said.
The two-day 'referendum', organised in Gujarat by the state unit of the BJP, started on April 11. The party had set up some 2,000 polling boxes at some important public places, including railway stations, major shopping centres and markets, while it had installed 'mobile booths' in autorickshaws and other vehicles all over the state for the purpose of voting.
The counting started at 10 am on Tuesday in all the 26 districts, wherein lawyers affiliated to the party went through peoples' opinion under the supervision of retired judges, farmers' leaders and industry association office-bearers.
The ballot paper had four questions to be replied in 'yes' or 'no' - whether the voters believed there was Indian black money in Swiss banks, did they favoured bringing it back, should the money brought back be used for the benefit of the poor and the weaker sections of the society, and if they agreed with LK Advani and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on taking necessary steps to unearth the black money.
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