The erstwhile Congress party lived all along portraying an unimpeded image of a pro-poor party with all its tall talk on its pro-poor policies for far too long until the dawn of the digital world that gave them a jolting taste of reality in the summer of 2014.
But in spite of a monumental fall during the Loksabha elections which was a direct result of public resentment against the corrupt incumbency of an inept Congress that lay ridden in scams had since long lost touch with the ground reality _ that is the people of India _ the common man, whose voice they did not heed to and whose mood they chose to ignore under preconceived notions of unintellectual arrogance, dynastic subservience and selective secularism thereby draining out public’s patience, but it is intriguing that the Congress time and again refuses to learn from history as they are back repeating the same grand mistakes in an equally grand pro-poor posture yet again!
The 2G scam tainted former Minister who has held decorated portfolios like Home and Finance ministries in the UPA reign, Mr.Palaniappan Chidambaram yesterday addressed the press at length about how big a scam the demonetization drive has been and how the Modi Government has hit the farmer and the rural sections by announcing a note ban and that it is only the poor who have had to bear the brunt and exclaimed it as an assault on the poor! Farmers are perhaps the most exploited in the votebank rhetoric for political mileage, it is another thing that the rural sections and farmers were denied the basic privilege of bank accounts for last many decades and have been categorically neglected leading them to heart wrenching suicides who have been living lives in abject penury without power or water or basic infrastructure or modern day facilities but never mind they will continue to be treated like fodder by Kleptocratic politicians who are reluctant to see that rural India is more receptive towards progressiveness if guided and handheld.
Mr. Chidambaram who is charged with allegations of corruption and money laundering using his position, expressed that although he was in favor of a digital world that geared up under Rajiv Gandhi, he thought that the idea of a cashless economy was a meaningless and thoughtless move by the Government and reiterated Dr. Singh’s words of monumental mismanagement. He quipped that the cashless idea was like Motherhood and the apple pie where nobody could speak against the cashless economy and that in a country where only 3% of transactions is cashless, going 100% is wishful and said that the egg was broken with an intention to make omlette but with no omlette made, the egg cannot be restored to its original form. But what he forgets is that while Omlettes might be taking a while to cook, the rotten eggs have categorically been crushed and that is why there is so much of an uproar!
Chidambaram who strongly opposed the Lok Pal bill and opposed bringing of CBI and the judiciary under its ambit, he who got the peaceful protesters in Ramleela grounds dragged and arrested by the night but advocated peaceful talks with Pakistan while his esteemed colleagues like Mani Shankar Aiyar make anti-Indian Government speeches in Pakistan, the left leaning minister questioned as to why the BJP did not consult its own former finance minister like Mr. Yashwanth Sinha and even expressed that Dr. Manmohan Singh could also have been consulted and trusted to keep the secret and driven the change by deploying the demonetization drive over an year instead of banning the notes overnight.
Chidambaram even mocked that this was not NoteBandi but Notebadli which merely replaced the 500s and 1000s and has helped the hoarders to stock neatly in 2000s.
P. Chidambaram the rich son of a rich banker Annamalai Chettiyar who owned 90 villages, who was given the tittle ‘Raja’ by the British Raj, who founded the Annamalai University, is known as the Robert Vadra of South India, as per a Wikipedia report that states that he owns funds of 32,000 Crore in 19 sub accounts with Rothschild Banks and Swiss banks, also his son Karti Chidambaram has businesses across the globe worth multi millions, but the economics maverick from Harvard said that the rich are unfazed by the move and that he was unable to draw Rs. 24000 in cash as there was no money in banks and vociferously questioned as to how bankers were laundering the money? As a former finance minister the least he could do was give insightful and implementable financial inputs or antidotes to the temporary crisis or critique on where exactly they erred by pointing out alternate solutions as this matter concerns the health of our economy where political parties across the nation should come together in the interest of our nation instead of simply making it yet another political score issue, but the honorable former minister only joked that people would now take bribe in 2000 notes.
On the aspect of demonetization choking the flow of terror money he said that this was not the way to control terror by making people stand in queues endlessly. It is another thing that on previous occasions Dr. Subramanian Swamy has alleged that P. Chidambaram was the man who issued currency paper procurement orders to a company in London, which also supplies currency paper to Pakistan.
However he also accused the Government of mishandling the execution of the noteban drive and aligned random 91 deaths with the demonetization drive just like the intolerance/beef/dalit episodes that were engineered solely for pulling down the then HRD minister Smriti Irani. So much for women empowerment and secular liberalism at the cost of communal bigotry!
But demonetization is one issue where they can neither cry intolerance nor play minority politics!
He made various other allegations where some concerns about going cashless overnight, printing would take more time, the queues might continue for some more time and his concern about cooperative banks could be valid, towards which the Government is already working to address.
While it is understandable that Chidambaram demands for the minutes of the RBI meeting in a press conference after his strong man Raghuram Rajan was grandly seen off but that a veteran in the finance spheres makes callous comments like ‘blow to Indian economy’ and ‘scam of the year’, makes for a poor rebuttal without any articulate facts or figures and reeks of battered egos that even a common man can see through!
If the current Government has made such bold decisions, it certainly cannot be without elaborate calculations of pros, cons and all the associated risks and deliberations for counter measures to handle any misappropriations or mischief and it is only fair to give them a fair chance before making cynical aspersions or castigating away a bold decision without honest thoughts.
The storm that the demonetization drive has kicked would soon settle down with time and people will patiently move on like always but what remains of concern is that the last several decades of corrupt impudence has cost the country dearly and any genuine attempt to alter the situation towards a better future should not be met with trivial comments triggered by hateful rants of lost opportunity, and politicians however sore personally should put nation above all.
