Rahul Gandhi at a press conference in New Delhi. (Photo: Renuka Puri)
CALLING DEMONETISATION a “huge scam”, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried out the exercise to help his “crony capitalist friends” convert black money into white money. He said the Prime Minister took away money from the common man’s pockets and gave it to crony capitalists, who had been funding his marketing campaign, and he now owes the people an answer on why he inflicted such a deep wound on them.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters, Rahul also accused the Prime Minister of “lying” on the Rafale fighter jet deal and reiterated his demand for setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe it. He said the Congress would not be cowed down by legal notices sent to its leaders by Anil Ambani’s Reliance group and argued that “the truth cannot be altered by defamation suits”.
“The result of demonetisation has come… almost the entire money has come back… two per cent GDP (loss), jobs of crores of people (lost) and the note ban had no result. So the Prime Minister will have to answer… why did he inflict such a big wound on the people. What was the reasoning and logic. I will tell you what was the reason. I want to tell India’s youth, small shopkeepers, middle and small business… why our Prime Minister carried out note ban,” he said.
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“His biggest 15-20 capitalists… crony capitalists who had taken money from banks… which had turned into NPAs… Narendra Modi took away money from the people’s pockets and gave it to them. That was the aim of demonetisation. At the time of demonetisation, Modi’s friends converted black money into white. For example, Rs 700 crore was changed in a cooperative bank in Gujarat in which Amit Shah is the director,” he said.
He said demonetisation cannot be called a “jumla”. “It can be called a scam,” he said, adding that the truth is that Modi carried out demonetisation to help 15-20 crony capitalists and entered into the “Rafale scam” to help his “friends”.
“The intention of demonetisation was to help the richest people, the most corrupt people in this land change their money from black to white.”
He said demonetisation was also done to “finish off” small and middle sized businesses and small shopkeepers to help big businesses. “Demonetisation was not a mistake. It was an attack on small and middle sized businesses and small shopkeepers… it was deliberately done to pave the way for big businesses like Amazon.”