“Bring back black money from foreign banks; 'every poor Indian would get ₹15 to ₹20 lakh'”

At a rally in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, on 7 November 2013, Narendra Modi, then the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, said that if the black money in foreign banks were brought back, 'every poor Indian would get free of cost Rs 15 to Rs 20 lakhs' (English rendering printed by BOOM and OpIndia). Congress leaders call it a promise of ₹15 lakh per person; BOOM and OpIndia read it as a description of how much money was abroad. In February 2015 BJP president Amit Shah called it a 'jumla'. The finance ministry reported ₹9,515.79 crore collected under the Black Money Act in 2023-26. No per-person payment has been reported.

“If even once, the money hoarded by these crooks in banks abroad, even if we bring only that back, every poor Indian would get free of cost Rs 15 to Rs 20 lakhs, just like that. There's so much money.”

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