Chidambaram criticises note ban, says Modi's cashless dream outlandish

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram came down heavely on central government November 8 demonetisation move and called it the biggest scam of the year that needs to be investigated.

This is the first time that opposition held press conference and quoted facts and figures to contest Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to delegalise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes.  

Here are few points that Chidambaram raised on economy, demonetisation process and its impact on people.

On economy  
# This is the biggest scam of the year and must be investigated.
# To assume that India will go from 3% to 100% cashless in a matter of few months is a outlandish expectations.
# Inflation has gone down because demand has gone down. But when there is no demand, no production is happening.
# Credit growth, greenfield investment and aggregate demand are on all time low due to DeMonetisation. These numbers matter.
# Confidence in Indian economy has been severely dented by number of measures but the most important being demonetisation.
#  Look at the numbers, Credit growth is the lowest in 20 years, green field investments and aggregate demand have gone down
# Long term impact that it will be negative for GDP. Even RBI's low projection shows it. Most economists say GDP would be hurt by 1-2%.
# Which country has cashless economy? Does US? Does Singapore have it? Where is electricity in country? Where are the machines?
# This is an absurd move by the Govt. No one has any good word to say on this.
# Keeping out District Cooperative Central Banks is punishing farmers.There is no money for them to buy supplie
# Every major economist, newspaper in world has said that this is the most absurd of moves by the government
# If they had to withdraw higher denomination notes, they could have done in the course of one year
# Has this stopped corruption, black money? The objective is not being served by this. Only poor people are being punished: 

On secrecy of the demonetisation move
# Government should have consulted at least Yashwant Sinha, he is their own man. They could have consulted Mr Manmohan Singh. 
# Are you suggesting that the former PM if consulted by the present PM, will betray a secret?

On problems faced by India 
# I am affected. I am not being able to get my Rs 24000 and therefore I am complaining
# You can’t trivialise a major blow to India’s economy. I'm sorry that PM is trivialising a major development in Indian economy
# Even a natural calamity might not cause so much of trouble
# The pain and sufferings people are facing in India especially rural India is indescribable, worse than natural calamity
# This is an illusion that it is intended to hurt the rich&benefit poor;don't see any rich man getting affected
# Just because people are not protesting in the manner, you are suggesting that does not mean that they are condoning what govt is doing 
# I believe people will not forget for what is being done to them and will certain not forgive the govt for it