Congress Plenary Session | Go to Tirupati hundi collectors, they count notes faster: P Chidambaram

Taking a dig at the Modi government for not disclosing the amount of devalued currency it has collected during the demonetization drive, former finance minister P Chidambaram asked the governor of the Reserve Bank of India to head to the temples at Tirupati.

"The RBI is still counting and won't tell us how much money has come back. I would like to advise the RBI Governor to go to Tirupati and get the hundi collectors. They count money faster than the RBI," said the former finance minister.

Chidambaram was presenting the economic resolution at the 84th Plenary of the Congress party. He further slammed the Modi government over the demonetization drive, and called the entire exercise the "greatest lie". In the resolution, he said that the decision took the lives of over 100 people.

The former finance minister further accused the Modi government of pushing millions of people behind the poverty line, and said that Manmohan Singh-led Congress government's biggest achievement was that it alleviated over 14 crore people from the poverty list.

Chidambaram further went on to say that it was only the Congress party that can pull the country out of the crisis. "I say that not out of arrogance, not out of conceit. I say that because we have done it before and we will do it again," he said, launching a phase that could be seen as a war cry of the Congress party ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.