The Opposition chose the second anniversary of demonetisation to target and corner the Centre over its alleged failure on the economic and policy fronts. As elections to five States are just days away, the Opposition also reminded people about the “difficulties” they had to face when the Narendra Modi government banned ₹500 and ₹ 1,000 on November 8, 2016.

Terming demonetisation a tragedy and a tyranny on people, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the day will go down in the history as a day of infamy. “With that one declaration of demonetisation, Modi took 86 per cent of India’s currency out of circulation, bringing our economy to a grinding halt,” Gandhi said in a statement.

He claimed that demonetisation is unique in the history of the country’s tragedies because it was a self-inflicted, suicidal attack that destroyed millions of lives and ruined thousands of India’s small businesses. “The worst hit by demonetisation were the poorest of the poor, forced to queue for days to exchange their meagre savings. More than a 120 Indians died in those queues. Millions of small and medium businesses were smashed and the entire informal sector devastated,” he said.

“Modi’s demonetisation cost India over one and a half million jobs and wiped out at least one per cent from our GDP,” he said. “The full truth about demonetisation is not out yet. The Indian people will not rest till it is,” he added.

Money laundering project

Former Minister and senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said demonetisation was a big money laundering project. He said after the move, non-performing assets have increased sharply, the banking system is struggling and, now, the Centre is bent on “snatching” the contingency reserves of the RBI. “It was an arbitrary and reckless decision of a Prime Minister” he claimed.

Left responds

The Left said Indian economy is yet to recover from the disaster imposed on the economy and the people by Modi. “All the claims that it will unearth lakhs of crores of rupees of black money and end corruption have proven to be utterly false. On the contrary, with 99.4 per cent of the banned notes back in the system, it is clear that demonetisation has, in fact, been the avenue to convert black money into white helping the most corrupt,’ a statement by the Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the biggest sufferers of demonetisation were the Agriculture sector, small businessmen, labourers, domestic workers and poor traders. “Who benefited from this decision? Why was this decision taken? To satisfy whom? I have a suspicion that this decision was taken to satisfy the agenda of a few people,” she said.

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