Demonetisation is ingenious money laundering: PC

On the second anniversary of demonetisation former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram described the move by the BJP government at the Centre as the most ingeniously designed official money laundering scheme. He targeted PM Narendra Modi alleging that none of the three declared objectives of demonetisation has materialized.

“Demonetisation did not render any single currency notes ‘worthless’ and the government did not reap a bonanza of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh crore. All the demonetised notes-actually 99.30 percent-were returned to the RBI...It was the most ingeniously designed official money laundering scheme,” said Chidambaram. He was speaking to journalists in Kolkata on Thursday.

Criticising the PM Modi over the issue Chidambaram argued that demonetisation failed to put an end to black money, fake currency and was never able to render any currency notes useless.

As for the impact of demonetisation on the economy, he said that it resulted into pushing millions of people into debt, brought down the GDP growth by 1.5%, a huge loss of jobs and forces thousands of MSMEs to shut down.

“Over a 100 people including from West Bengal died while standing in queue,” said Chidambaram.

Chidambaram further alleged that facing a fiscal deficit, BJP government at the Centre has demanded Rs 1 lakh crore from the reserves of the RBI.

“When the RBI Governor refused to oblige the government took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of invoking section 7 of the RBI Act,” said Chidambaram.