Rahul, Chidambaram step up attack on govt over demonetisation

Dadri(UP)/Nagpur, December 13

The Congress on Tuesday unleashed a dual attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over note ban woes with Rahul Gandhi accusing him of "waging a war" against the poor by rendering them "cashless" and P Chidambaram calling it a "biggest scam" of the year that needed to be probed.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Before banning high-value notes, Chidambaram said Modi should at least have consulted his "own man" Yashwant Sinha, a former union finance minister, so that the "monumental mismanagement" could have been avoided.

Taking a vox-pop-style referendum on demonetisation among people standing in a bank queue in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi charged that the announcement by Modi on November 8 has enabled the conversion of black money into white.

Who said what

"Only 2 paise out of Rs 100 is counterfeit. Modiji says he will make the economy cashless. He has made it cashless indeed, with the poor having no cash." — Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi

"Demonetisation has broken the back of 45 crore people. It is punishing the poor. I see no rich man affected by the ban." — Former finance minister P Chidambaram 

The Congress vice-president alleged that the NDA government has "blocked" the money of the poor through currency ban to favour a "handful of industrialists" and to recapitalise banks that have extended loans worth "Rs 8 lakh crore" to them.

Addressing a gathering at a wholesale market, Gandhi said, “The Prime Minister has brought honest people on the streets while the rich and the corrupt are taking money through the backdoor of banks.

"It was done to ensure that the poor deposit their money in the banks, which will be used to repay the debt of around Rs 8 lakh crore owed by these industrialists to the banks.

Modiji wants the money of the poor to remain in the banks for the next six to eight months," he said.

Gandhi said the measure will "injure" the country. He also accused the Prime Minister of shifting goalposts over the issue by listing the objective of the measures ranging from unearthing black money to curbing counterfeit currency.

"Only 2 paise out of Rs 100 is counterfeit. Two days after Modiji made the announcement, terrorists, after they were slain, were found having new currency. Then he says he will make the economy cashless. He has made it cashless indeed, with the poor having no cash," he said.

Chidambaram while terming the exercise as "absurd" and "thoughtless" in a scathing attack on the Modi government sought to know how many economies in the world are cashless.

"This is the worst assault on the poor in the country.

Demonetisation has broken the back of 45 crore people. It is punishing the poor. I see no rich man affected by the ban," the Congress leader told a press meet in Nagpur.

"Daily wagers are out of work. Village markets and mandis have been shut for the last 30 days," Chidambaram said.

"World over small transactions are done in cash not by cards. To assume that India will go from 3 per cent to 100 per cent cashless in a matter of few months, is an outlandish expectation," the former union finance minister said.

It was an illusion that demonetisation was created to hurt the rich and help the poor, he said.

Highlighting the woes of the people in remote areas, he said, "The pain in rural areas is indescribable."

The Congress leader while seeking a thorough probe by the SIT on the matter said that recent cash seizures in Rs 2,000 notes across the country point to the "biggest scam" arising out of the note ban. — PTI