Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has once again lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this time for the 2016 demonetization, which he calls a ‘scam worth several crores.’
Speaking at the election campaign of the Samajwadi Party’s Lucknow candidate, Poonam Sinha, Yashwant said, “The questions is, why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi not talking about demonetization (in his poll campaigns) which, according to him, was the decision of the century? Why is he not mentioning demonetization in his poll speeches? It was a scam worth more than several lakh crores and I would like to request the new government to investigate this matter as soon as they form the government.”
Further taking a dig at the Modi government for forging the economic data, Yashwant said, “Neither our Prime Minister nor the finance minister (Arun Jaitley) know anything about the economy. The figures released in the public are fudged and false. The figures which are not in favour of the government are simply fudged by the NITI Ayog. This should also be investigated by the new government and actual figures should be released so that the people of the country can be aware of the actual situation of our economy.”
Yashwant has been a vocal critic of Modi and BJP since the time he left the party last year. Even in his book ‘India Unmade’, Sinha accused the Modi government of destabilizing the economy with the note ban. He said, “If one were to look at the context in which demonetization was done, you will recall we first came out with Jan Dhan Yojana and crores of accounts were created under the pretext of empowering the poorest of the poor by opening their bank accounts. This was in place and suddenly demonetization came. The entire currency came back largely through Jan Dhan accounts.”
Yashwant has also targeted Modi for latter’s repeated reference to Pakistan in his election speeches. He further asked why wasn’t Modi talking about China. “Modi’s 56-inch chest is only for Pakistan and it shrinks to six inches when the Chinese threat is mentioned,” said Yashwant, criticising Modi’s foreign policy.
“By invoking Pakistan all the time, PM Modi has made the mistake of hyphenating the two nations once again,” warned the former bureaucrat-turned-politician
Yashwant claimed the government would leave the country’s economy in shambles and the new dispensation would have a lot to do, including bringing out a white paper on economic conditions, demonetization, GST and others.
Criticizing the low level of language in political discourse, Yashwant said Modi was primarily responsible for this.
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