Modi “destroyed” India’s economy by demonetisation: Kharge

Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ”destroyed” India’s economy through demonetisation.

”Today it is five years since Modi ji announced demonetisation on November 8, 2016. Unemployment has risen, small businesses have been hit and closed. He (Modi) spoiled the country’s good economy through demonetisation,” Kharge told reporters. On this day in 2016, the Prime Minister had announced the decision to ban currency notes in the denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

The veteran leader also hit out at the Modi government over the various objectives cited for demonetisation, including to curb black money flow. ”Today the situation is that people who lost their jobs due to demonetisation their jobs have not come back. This is a ‘Black Day’ for people of the country. Today the currency notes in circulation continues to rise with over Rs 28 lakh crore,” the former Union Minister said. On former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, who recently tendered an apology to Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, Kharge said it vindicated the Congress consistent stand that the entire 2G spectrum case was a massive ”conspiracy” backed by the BJP-RSS machinery to destabilise the (then) Manmohan Singh-led UPA government. Rai had tendered an unconditional apology to Nirupam for ”wrongly mentioning him as one of the MPs who had pressured him not to name former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the CAG report on the 2G spectrum allocation.

Kharge accused Rai of acting as another puppet of the conspiracy and also demanded that he apologise to the nation for his ”lies”.

He also slammed the BJP-led NDA government over the ”small” reduction in petrol and diesel prices, saying ”it was too little and too late will not benefit the people much