Congress demands white paper on demonetisation move; seeks probe by Joint Parliamentary Committee

Congress on Sunday demanded a white paper from the Centre on the demonetisation move which it claimed is the “biggest scam of India” and sought a probe into it by a Joint Parliamentary Committee.

“We want to know with whom did the Central government hold discussion about demonetisation. The government should issue a white paper on this,” senior party leader Digvijay Singh told reporters in Patna.

“A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) should probe the entire issue of demonetisation which helped BJP and its men convert black money into assets,” he said.

Singh alleged that even the Prime Minister’s Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian and other officials were in the dark about the impending demonetisation.

“Some people had information in advance which is evident from the fact that Rs one crore were deposited in BJP’s account in a Kolkata bank in addition to the party buying land in Bihar and Odisha,” he claimed.

Singh, a Rajya Sabha member, was in the state capital as part of the party’s strategy to get people acquainted with the Congress’ view on demonetisation.

He was accompanied by Bihar Congress chief and Bihar Education Minister Ashok Choudhary, Sadanand Singh, Dilip Kumar Choudhary, H K Verma and others.

Terming demonetisation as the “biggest scam of India”, Singh alleged that Punjab BJP’s legal cell co-convenor Sanjeev Kamboj had put his photograph on social media with wads of new notes of Rs 2,000 that raises a question mark on the BJP leaders having free access to new currency notes when the common people are standing in lines to withdraw money.

He pointed out that the Modi government increased the “limit of foreign remittances from India” from 75,000 to 2.5 lakh US Dollars, and alleged that the decision led to an outflow of nearly Rs 30,000 crore from the country only in one year prior to demonetisation.

“Whose money was sent out is yet to be disclosed,” Singh said.