Concede the fact more people in the country supporting demonetisation: Chidambaram

Guwahati: Describing Indian citizens as `tolerant’, Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram today conceded the fact that at present more people in the country are supporting the demonetisation decision but will go against it once they realise the impact in next four months. Delivering the Anjan Dutta Foundation lecture here, Mr Chidambram, the most vocal critic of the demonetisation policy of the NDA government said,” presently, I concede the fact that more people are supporting the demonetisation policy, but soon they will realise the after affect of the decision and will go against it.

Describing Indian citizens as `tolerant’, Mr Chidambaram said the demonetisation is a “calamity” that has inflicted lot of pain to the economy and the after affects will be `alarming’ for the people of India. He said already Indian economy is on downturn with millions of job losses due to the sudden withdraw of cash. “The small medium sectors are virtually bleeding. Many factories in Tamil Nadu, Maharasthra has closed down rendering millions of daily wage workers jobless,” Mr Chidambaram said adding that due to the demonetisation India’s Gross Domestic Product will fall by nearly one percent.

Listing the demerits of the demonetisation, he said India has joined the list of countries like Libya, Zimbabwe, North Korea who demonetised their currency due to high inflation. He also questioned the role of Reserve Bank of India governor Urijit Patel in the entire process. “Seven governors before Mr Patel rejected the idea of demonetisation, he within 64 days in office gave a go ahead to the government of such an important decision,” Mr Chidambaram said. (UNI)