Continuing with his criticism of central government's move of notebandi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that the government's demonetisation move was actually an attack on "India’s poor, farmers, labour and small businessmen.
Rahul Gandhi slams Modi government for destroying informal economy with demonetisation move. (file photo)Continuing his criticism of demonetisation, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s ‘notebandi’ was actually an attack on “India’s poor, farmers, labour and small businessmen”. It was also an attack on India’s unorganised economy, Rahul Gandhi said in the second part of his video series on Indian economy. On 8 November 2016, PM Modi had announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 will no longer be valid as the government looked to cracked down upon black money. It also gave a push to digital payments and cashless economy. Speaking on the same, Rahul Gandhi said that “cashless” is actually “labour-farmer-small businessmen-less” India.
Rahul Gandhi also asked if the move helped in curbing black money which was the chief agenda behind invalidating Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency. He also rhetorically questioned what purpose did the move serve for India’s most poor citizens. Citing a report from Azim Premji University, the 50-year-old congressman said that between 2016-2018, around 50 lakh people lost their jobs. “So who benefitted? India’s biggest billionaires benefited. How? The government used people’s money to clear the loans of big defaulters” he asked. The government cleared the loans of around 50 industrialists which totaled to Rs 68,607 crore while no loans were pardoned for farmers, labour, small businesses, he said.
Stating that this was not the only agenda behind the demonetisation move, Rahul Gandhi said that there was a latent agenda as well, which was to clear the ground. “The unorganised sector works on cash. Small businessmen, labour and farmers work on cash. The idea was to take the cash out of the unorganised sector,” Rahul Gandhi said, adding that if the government wants cashless India, that will ultimately kill unorganised sector as the sector cannot survive without cash.
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