Demonetisation meant for bailing out those with black money, says Congress

Hitting out at the opposition, BJP on Tuesday said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working to curb black money and corruption with his demonetization exercise, rival parties have “ganged up” against him.

At a late-night review meeting called on Sunday, the Prime Minister said the government’s strategy would be to “stand by the decision”.

“No chance of rethinking”.

“The vision of your “kadak chai” haunting them in their nightmares are not the rich and mighty, but the poorest of the poor of this country”, Amarinder said.

Despite being a partner of the BJP-led governments in Maharashtra as well as at the Centre, unlike other NDA components the Sena has taken a strident stance against the demonetization, holding the hardship it causes to the people is greater than its positive yield. He added that temporary pain that people of the country are facing is ‘for larger gain’. They have turned on the government and especially the Prime Minister, who jetted to Japan as the crisis unfolded.

Trinamool Congress chief Banerjee, who has urged the opposition to fight jointly, termed the demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes a “killer” for the common people and accused Modi of insulting the poor by saying they were sleeping peacefully.

“There was discussion on taking initiative taken by the government to its logical conclusion”.

“We are ready to discuss the issue in Parliament”.

The Congress blamed the government for what it said was an “economic anarchy” while CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that the decision was made with an eye on upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

When he left on the tour his war on black money was being hailed as a master stroke unprecedented in India’s fiscal history. The government then introduced higher denomination banknotes in Rs 1000, Rs 5000 and Rs 10000 in a fresh avatar eight years later in 1954 before the Morarji Desai government demonetised these notes in 1978. Someone from the van announced that only Rs. 1 lakh was being loaded in the ATM which meant only the first 40 in the queue would be able to draw Rs 2,500 each.

“It has not taken any action against the big business houses which have evaded taxes or defaulted on the loans they have taken to the tune of thousands of crore from the nationalised banks”.

The income tax department has sent notices to about 600 jewelers across the nation to submit the details of sales that took place between November 7 and 10.