New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday launched an attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move as he allegedly termed it as a ‘huge scam’ which helped his ‘crony capitalist friends’.
“It was not a mistake but a deliberate attack on the people,” said Gandhi at a press briefing in the national capital.
Gandhi’s allegations comes a day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) conceded for the first time that almost all the banknotes invalidated in November 2016 have returned to it in the form of deposits.
PM Modi rendered invalid Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes worth Rs 15.44 lakh crore from the midnight of November 8-9, 2016, in an unprecedented move the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government described as a crackdown on black money, or untaxed, unaccounted cash stashed away by dishonest individuals, terror financing and counterfeit currency.
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In its latest annual report released on Wednesday, RBI said as much as 99.3% of the junked bank notes by value, or Rs 15.3 lakh crore, had returned to the banking system, confirming what had been widely perceived by economists and banking experts a long time ago: that much of the money had found its way back or that some individuals had found ways of laundering their black money.