Demonetisation a scam, legalise old notes after December 30: Sitaram Yechury

Vijayawada:The CPI(M) today demanded that the Centre allow the scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to be legal tender after December 30 if it fails to make available new currency equal in value to that of the demonetised notes.

“Otherwise, the problems being faced by people in getting their own money will only persist and it could take over a year for things to stabilise,” the party general secretary Sitaram Yechury said here today.

He spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a party programme here.
Calling the demonetisation a “very big scam”, the Rajya Sabha member also demanded that a Joint Parliamentary Committee be constituted to probe into it.

“We have seen evidences of how BJP people, BJP state units all deposited their money in the old notes hours before the Prime Minister’s announcement. How did they do that ? All this points to a very big scam and that is why we have demanded a JPC to be formed to probe all these allegations and to expose this scam,” Yechury said.

“The way the demonetisation has been done, it is clear that there are many people who have come to know of this and they have made all their arrangements without any problem.

“Bulk of the people who hold black money have managed to convert it into the new currency,” he pointed out.

“Now the RBI Governor says over 82 per cent of the demonetised value of notes is back into the banking system.

And, including the CRRs of the banks and what is likely to happen till December 30, it is likely more money is going to come back into the banking system than what has been demonetised. This clearly is a scam,” Yechury said.
PTI