India
On the second anniversary of demonetisation, Congress has demanded an apology from the Prime Minister for 'wrecking the economy and causing its people untold hardships' through his 'Tughlaqi' experiment nationwide
New Delhi: The Congress has decided said that it will hold a nationwide protest on Thursday on the second anniversary of demonetisation.
The Congress has demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ‘ruining and wrecking’ the country.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari compared the demonetisation to Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s eccentric monetary reforms. He said, “The prime minister stood up two years ago on November 8 and addressed the nation, demonetising almost Rs 16.99 lakh crore in circulation.”
“The three reasons given for demonetisation were that it would curb black money, weed out fake notes and proscribe terror financing, but two years later none of those objectives have materialised,” Tiwari said. “In fact, there is more cash in circulation today than it was two years ago when Modi announced demonetisation,” he added.
On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through a televised speech, made the demonetisation announcement, scrapping Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The government said that this move would curtail black money in the nation’s economy. This had rendered 86% of Indian currency invalid.
The Reserve Bank of India has declined to reveal the cost incurred on shredding banned currency notes worth Rs 15,31,073 crore which returned to banks following demonetisation.
On August 2018, the RBI in its 2017-18 Annual Report, revealed that 99.3% of the total value of demonetised currency that was in circulation at the time of demonetisation, has been returned to the RBI.
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