New Delhi: Hitting back at Rahul Gandhi over his criticism of demonetisation, the BJP said Friday that a war is going on in Indian politics with the Narendra Modi-led government working to curb black money while the Congress president trying to save it. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said Gandhi’s comments were nothing but a pack of lies and that he has been speaking from the same script for long.
India has been progressing under Modi while the Gandhi family has been left behind, he said. Demonetisation, whose second anniversary fell Friday, destroyed the “ill-gotten wealth of the four generations of the Gandhi family”, Patra alleged, claiming that the move, which had made notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 invalid, led to many benefits, including increase in tax base, curbing black money and hitting Naxalism.
In his criticism, the Congress chief had said that demonetisation was a planned “brutal conspiracy” and a “shrewd scheme” to convert the black money of Modi’s “suited-booted friends”. What Gandhi has said is ridiculous and another lie from him, Patra said. Referring to Gandhi’s reported comments that rich people in big car did not stand in queue to deposit their demonetised notes, the BJP leader took a dig, saying the Congress leader himself had stood outside a bank for this.
The BJP is winning the war against those working to save black money, he claimed, adding that Income Tax searches had yielded revenue of over Rs 35,000 crore while a law against ‘benami’ properties had led to seizure of over Rs 4,300 crore worth of assets.
Deaths in Naxal violence have come down by 60 per cent in 2017 as compared to 2009, he said, crediting demonetisation as a factor behind it. He also quoted a report that claimed that maximum number of Maoists had surrendered in a month following the decision. Gandhi had called “urban Naxals”, a term used by the BJP to refer loosely to those accused of helping Naxals, NGO and his party had described them as revolutionaries, Patra claime. To a question about demands of Hindutva bodies and also of some Union ministers that the central government bring a law to pave the way for constructing Ram temple in Ayodhya, he said people have a right to express their opinion.