This is what P Chidambaram would have done if note ban was implemented during his time

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, while slamming demonetisation as unethical, said that he would have resigned if the Prime Minister during his tenure had forced upon him to implement it.

He added that he would have chosen to resign as Finance Minister rather than implement it.

He was replying to a question at the Delhi Literature Festival on what would he have done had he been in Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's place.

Chidambaram, who presented nine Union budgets as Finance Minister, said although the Prime Minister has asked for 50 days for the situation to ease out, "putting the poor under this for 50 days is torture". "If you take away the livelihood of the poor for 50 days...There is a dimension to every economic decision the government takes as well as ethical and political dimensions.

"Some decisions may be inherently good, but if they are ethically or morally sad, then the governments oblige by not taking such decisions."If you have taken a decision, which has virtually driven a large number of people to borrow money, then it's completely unethical, immoral," Chidambaram said.

With agency inputs