Lucknow: Former union finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday referred to demonetisation as “a scam worth several lakh crores” and claimed that the move was planned by ministers of the current NDA government.

Speaking with News18 in Lucknow, Sinha said, “The questions is, why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi not talking about demonetisation (in his poll campaigns) which, according to him, was the decision of the century? Why is he not mentioning demonetisation in his poll speeches? It was a scam worth more than several lakh crores and I would like to request the new government to investigate this matter as soon as they form the government.”

Taking a dig at the Modi government over “false” economic figures, the former union minister said, “Neither our Prime Minister nor the finance minister (Arun Jaitley) know anything about the economy. The figures released in the public are fudged and false. The figures which are not in favour of the government are simply fudged by the NITI Ayog. This should also be investigated by the new government and actual figures should be released so that the people of the country can be aware of the actual situation of our economy.”

He was in Lucknow to campaign for Samajwadi Party candidate Poonam Sinha, who is contesting against senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh.

Sinha said People of Lucknow should not vote for someone who has not done anything for the city or country. “Rajnath Singh is a very good friend of mine and we expected that he would stand up against the wrongdoings of his government. But he chose to remain silent. I feel he is ‘majboor’ and not a ‘mazboot’ candidate for the people of Lucknow.”

Sinha, a BJP stalwart in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee era, had quit the party last year after voicing his dissent from the party leadership for quite some time.

On Wednesday, he alleged that the government was unnecessarily dragging Pakistan into everything just to polarise the environment for political gains. “Why is there no voice against China? When China disagreed in listing Masood Azhar’s organisation as an international terrorist outfit, our government couldn’t muster the courage to take China’s name in their statement,” Sinha said.

“We are much bigger and powerful than countries like Pakistan. Constantly engaging with them brings down our image and makes us being compared to them over and over again. This is all done for polarising the environment for political gains; however China is not engaged as it won’t polarise the issue,” he added.