Modi should accept notes recall was a mistake: Chidambaram

: Stating that the withdrawal of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 notes has failed to achieve its stated objectives, former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should accept that he had made a mistake.

“No government, no Prime Minister has the right to unleash such a disaster on the people,” he said. Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Su. Thirunavukkarasar said that Mr. Chidambaram’s speech, organised in the TNCC headquarters’ premises, was part of the party’s strategy to begin critical conversations about demonetisation at the grassroots-level.

Claiming that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had expressed regret about the Emergency, Mr. Chidambaram urged Mr. Modi to accept that he had taken wrong decisions from a position of ignorance and based on poor advice. “Indira Gandhi had said that the Emergency had been imposed with good intentions. She said that because of that [Emergency], people had to suffer a lot and vowed never to do it again...However, the Prime Minister insists that the rabbit he caught has three legs,” he said.

“Their claims of ending black money, corruption and counterfeit currency have been proved false. Bribes continue to be taken in the new Rs. 2,000 notes; money continues to turn black,” he said.

“When you present a cheque without having money in your account, you get rigorous imprisonment. These days, even when there is money in your account, the banks have no money. Who is going to jail for that?” he questioned.

He also said he was concerned about the way the Reserve Bank of India had conducted itself. “When the Congress was in power, we made sure that there would be 14 RBI directors. On November 8, the Reserve Bank had four directors. It has been like that for two-odd years; I think it has been kept like that to make decisions like these,” he said.