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

In an interview he quoted syaing "The questions is, why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi not talking about demonetisation 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."

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."

He also added "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."

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 sometime.