NEW DELHI: Alleging that move to recall high-value currency notes by the BJP-led central government in 2016 was the biggest scam in the world, the Congress’s Delhi unit on Friday said that the decision had wrecked the lives of poor, farmers, shopkeepers and traders.
Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said that the decision to ban currency notes of denominations `500 and Rs 1,000 would always be remembered as an ‘economic ruin and unemployment scam’ and the government of Prime Minster Narendra Modi would go down in history as the ‘villain of demonetisation’.
Speaking at a ‘Halla Bol’ (raise your voice) rally, a demonstration against ‘economic slowdown’ at Sadar Bazaar on the third anniversary of demonetisation, Chopra said,“The Modi government is ruining the economy of the country and driving the unemployment rate to its worst ever. All this is the fallout of demonetisation done three years ago. While the decision has brought the country on the brink of economic ruin, terrorist activities have grown by leaps and bounds. The fruits of demonetisation, if any, have been derived only by Modi’s rich friends,” he said.
To support his claim of unemployment rate rising to a 45-year high, Chopra cited data released by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). “Unemployment rate stands at 8.19% as on August, 2019 — the highest ever. Globally, the unemployment rate is only at 4.95%. This means that our unemployment rate is double the world’s average,” he said.