BHUBANESWAR: The Congress on Friday staged a protest against demonetisation in front of RBI’s regional office here. As part of the party’s nation-wide protest during second anniversary of demonetisation, Congress activists led by OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik criticised the note ban exercise of Narendra Modi Government.
Observing the day as black day, the leaders highlighted miseries that people of the nation faced in the last two years under Modi regime. Congress said the move of the Prime Minister was a tragedy inflicted on millions of people. Slamming the Centre for the thoughtless step, the party said demonetisation has crippled the country’s economy and ruined small businesses besides rendering millions jobless.
Describing it as the biggest scam and organised loot by Modi Government, Niranjan said the move by Modi has only helped BJP supporters in converting their accumulated black money into white.
While many small and medium traders have incurred huge loses, millions of people working in unorganised sector lost their jobs.
“Out of Rs 15.44 lakh crore in circulation, Rs 15.31 lakh crore were deposited in the banks. So where did the black money go?” questioned Niranjan.
The senior Congress leader said the country is still experiencing the bad effect of note ban. There was a loss of 1.5 per cent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) which amounts to `2.25 lakh crore per annum. “The Prime Minister had promised ‘acche din’, but only ‘bure din’ has befallen on the
people,” he remarked.
Senior leader and former union minister Srikant Jena said demonetisation failed to curb black money as 99 per cent of banned Rs 500 and Rs1,000 notes were returned. Modi should apologise for his madness, Jena added.
On the other hand, BJP said “India hugely benefited because of demonetisation. The income tax returns have doubled and increased to more than 25 per cent in two years. There was a steep increase in collection of taxes and investigations are being carried out against three lakh companies which tried to convert their black money into white,” informed BJP’s Odisha-in-charge Arun Singh.