New Delhi: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday held a meeting with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial nominee LK Advani and discussed security related issues and political matters like black money stashed by Indians in foreign banks.
''The Home Minister met Mr Advani,'' ministry sources confirmed but refused to give details of the meeting.
The meeting assumes significance in view of the Home Minister's recent letter to 40 VVIPs including Advani urging them to take precautions while campaigning in view of intelligence reports regarding increased threat perception to them.
The Home Minister had urged them to cooperate with security forces engaged in the duties and share their tour programmes and movement plans with central and state authorities concerned well in advance during the election period.
Chidambaram had also conveyed to Advani and other leaders, most of whom are under Z category, security cover, that if they wanted to discuss the threat perception and security requirements in view of the intelligence inputs they could contact him or Home Ministry officials.
Earlier, Chidambaram and Advani had difference of opinion on the issue of money stashed by Indians in foreign banks with the BJP leader charging Chidambaram of remaining ''evasive and maintaining silence and inaction about illicit money kept abroad by Indian nationals''.
Chidambaram had countered the charge saying that the matter was pursued diligently by the Finance Ministry, which he earlier headed, and his reply to Advani was ''direct, clear and unambiguous''.
He had clarified that on the basis of a news report on February 26, 2008, the Finance Ministry on February 29, 2008 had written to the Federal Central Tax Office, Bonn, Germany seeking information relating to Indian tax payers who may have accounts with Lichenstein's LGT Bank.
Advani had claimed that Indians have hoarded their 'illicit wealth' estimated to be ranging from Rs 25,00,000 to 70,00,000 crore outside India in secret Swiss bank accounts and tax havens elsewhere in the world.
He also released a letter written to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 6, 2008, and charged that it was baffling that the government had adopted a policy of 'deafening silence and inaction' by taking no steps to get information about illicit money kept abroad by Indian nationals and strive to get it back.
He had also charged that Chidambaram was giving evasive reply on the issue of offer of German LGI Bank to give out the names of Indians presumed to have secret accounts in its bank. India was yet to approach Germany for this data, he had alleged.
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