Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday defended demonetisation and said it was not implemented without any thought as projected.
“We have said that in the manifesto that we will fight against black, unaccounted money. It is not that we did it suddenly without any foresight. The circulation of high denomination notes such as ₹500 and ₹1,000, whose volumes were as high as 80% in 2013-14 has come down. Also it was to encourage people to use the bank for high-value transaction. These were the good intentions of demonetisation,” said Ms. Sitharaman.
Refuting former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s comment that demonetisation was ‘organised loot and legalised plunder’, she said that he ignored corruption while he was the Prime Minister.
When he was the Prime Minister, there was continuous ‘Organised Loot and Legalised plunder’ and corruption cases are still ongoing. The Supreme Court directed the Central government to set up an SIT to investigate into black money in 2011. Till 2014, nothing much was done. “Demonetisation was done keeping in mind the country’s economy. I am disappointed to hear such words from Manmohan Singh. The BJP set up an SIT once it came back to power and we intensified our actions ,” she said.
‘Short-term pain’
She further said that there would be consequences of demonetisation in the short-term, but the economy would recover. “The decision was taken keeping in mind long-term benefits. Economy has to be more formal and transparent,” she said.
Asked whether the time period between demonetisation and GST was perhaps too short, she said, “There were so many questions asked on black money and GST since 2014. So, PM Modi has done it. Now, silly questions are being raised about the short period between demonetisation and GST,” she said.
Later speaking at another event, Ms. Sitharaman said the government had unearthed a shell company that had 2,000 bank accounts and had cash transactions of nearly ₹4,000 crore.
“We have spoken in public about operation of fake shell companies. One such fake company had about 2,000 bank accounts,” she said, adding that the company has now been shut down.
“If demonetisation was not implemented, do you think this would have come out?” she asked.