Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday termed demonetisation a "tragedy" and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "robbing" the country of its economic prowess and "damaging" India by converting people's anger due to joblessness into "communal hatred". He said livelihood of millions of honest Indians was destroyed due to this "thoughtless act" of the Prime Minister.
Rahul said the Prime Minister claimed his decision was aimed at wiping out corruption, but "12 months on the only thing he has wiped out is confidence in our once booming economy". He alleged that demonetisation destroyed the informal labour sector and has wiped out many small and medium businesses.
"Modi has damaged India by converting anger created by joblessness and lack of economic opportunity into communal hatred. He has chosen to hide behind a shallow, hate-filled political narrative. Anger might have brought Modi to power but it will never create jobs or fix India's institutions," Rahul said in an article in a foreign newspaper by him.
Quoting the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Rahul said 1.5 million people have lost their jobs in the first four months of 2017 due to demonetisation, which he termed as an "arbitrary and unilateral" decision of the PM. He also said the "hastily imposed and poorly conceptualised" goods and services tax "dealt another blow to our economy"."Bureaucratic and complex, it (GST) has devastated livelihoods, creating a modern day 'licence Raj' that imposes rigid controls and gives vast powers to Government officials," he said.
He lauded the Chinese dominance in the manufacturing sector with its global share rising from 3 per cent in 1990s to 25 per cent now, and said that while China creates 50,000 jobs a day, India under Modi creates mere 500 jobs a day.
For his part, launching a scathing attack on the Modi Government on the note ban anniversary, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said millions of people "suffered" and no one can deny that lives and jobs were lost due to demonetisation. Chidambaram claimed cash with the public is Rs 15 lakh crore and it is increasing and will soon reach the November 2016 level of Rs 17 lakh crore.
Chidambaram claimed that artificial reduction of cash in circulation is one of the reasons for lower demand and lower growth. "In interest of transparency, Government/RBI should release RBI Board's agenda, background note and (former Governor) Dr Raghuram Rajan's note. If Government is confident of its decision, why does it fear releasing these documentsIJ," he asked.
Chidambaram said the Government has claimed that black money has been eliminated but when the Gujarat election campaign will start "you will find the 'eliminated' black money".