Note ban will be probed after change of guard at Centre: Congress
November 30, 2018 23:18
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma Friday termed demonetisation as the BJP's "money laundering scam", adding the move would be probed after the "government changes at the Centre".
"After this announcement, there were many incidents of seizure of cash by police and all those arrested were associated with the BJP. Not only this, but within 10 days to demonetisation, the new currency reached terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir," he told reporters in Jodhpur.
On November 8, 2016, the government had scrapped old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. It later issued the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 banknotes.
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claim that demonetisation would deal a blow to black money, Sharma alleged 99.3 per cent cash returned to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) after the move which meant that almost the entire cash from the market reached the central bank and there was no black money.
"Modi just lied to the people...," the former Union commerce minister said.
On the Goods and Services Tax, Sharma said the Congress was in favour of the indirect tax regime, but was kept in dark by the BJP while introducing the same.
"They goofed up on the issue and purposefully kept petroleum, electricity, alcohol and real estate out of the ambit of GST. These all together constitute 45 per cent of the total revenue of the country," he said.
The Congress leader also claimed the "haphazard" and "indiscreet" decision devastated the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector and about 4 crore jobs were lost.
He said only Bharatiya Janata Party benefitted from these decisions and amassed 86.4 per cent of the total donations given to political parties, adding the saffron party spent a whopping Rs 4,297 crore on advertisements. -- PTI
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