Agencies Will Go After Everybody Who Has Got Black Money: FM

THE TAX DEVOLUTION share of states is decided by the Finance Commission and no finance minister, not even the "wickedest" one, can tweak it in favour of one state or the other, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at the Express Adda organised by The Indian Express in Bengaluru on Wednesday. She also said more than domestic factors, external factors are a cause of worry for the economy.

"The Central government has no role to play except for obeying the Finance Commission. The Finance Commission tells me 'You give this much per month', I have to do it. There is no way in which any finance minister, leave alone me, any finance minister, can tweak it in favour of one or the other.

Even the wickedest finance minister can't do it because it's all there," she said.

Referring to the recent remarks by Opposition leaders of southern states collectively demanding their rights, Sitharaman said: "It's now getting into this very dangerous threshold of 'southern states together'. You had a responsible member of Parliament, brother of deputy chief minister of Karnataka, say 'We'll have a separate southern state'. It cannot go to that extent...I cannot for a moment stand next to anybody who says 'We in the southern states', then demand"