Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday charged that through the demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally converted black money of each and every hoarder in the country into white money.
Addressing a “Sangarsh” rally organised by the Congress on the occasion of birth centenary year of late Indira Gandhi and late chief minister Vasantdada Patil at Parbhani, Rahul came down heavily on the Narendra Modi government for its failures on various fronts, including demonetisation.
“I will explain the success of the demonetisation. Hindustan ka har ek chor ka kala dhan Narendra Modiji ne swayam safed paise me badal diya (Narendra Modi had personally converted the black money of each and every hoarder in the country into white money). This is is the truth of demonetisation,” Rahul said.
Maintaining that the demonetisation failed to achieve its stated objected objectives, the Congress vice president said: “Narendra Modi said that he had resorted to demonetisation to fight black money. But it is strange 90 per cent of black money has been invested in land, gold, real estate and Swiss bank accounts – a fact Narendra Modi had himself said. We do not know the reason why the Prime Minister chose not to go after 90 per cent black money but preferred to go after 10 per cent black money”.
Rahul ridiculed Modi’s claim that many black money hoarders would not return the money and that the Government would invest the unreturned money on the poor and down trodden.
“Recently, the RBI made a disclosure that 99 per cent of demonetised money came back to it..... Who will compensate or account for the people who were killed during the demonetisation period, farmers who suffered losses, small shopkeepers who had to shut down businesses, the labourers who did not have money to survive and most importantly the country’s growth that witnessed a major declineIJ. Narendra Modi will never compensate or give an account for these losses,” the Congress vice president said.
Hitting out at the lop-sided implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Rahul said: “The GST is the brain child of the Congress. But, the GST being currently implemented by the NDA government has nothing to do with the Congress. This GST is basically meant for 50 industrialists whom the Modi government wants to favour. The aim of this GST is to finish off the small shop keepers and petty businessmen”
“Instead of one tax with a limit of 18 per cent, this government has made five brackets and taken the limit up to 28 per cent. Small businessmen have file three tax returns every months and 36 returns in a year. These small traders do not have accountants and they have to spend all their time filling the forms. In the process, these small traders will be exposed to harassment by Income Tax department officials,” the Congress vice president said.
Rahul also charged that the Modi government had failed to addressed the two major challenges – that of protecting the interests of farmers, poor, down-trodden, Dalits, Adviasis and minorities and that of generating employment in the country. “Three years ago, Modi made several false promises. As a first, he promised Rs 15 lakh each in the bank accounts of the people. Then he promised Swachh Bharat ... He promised two crore jobs every year. All the government has generated is mere one lakh jobs,” he said
The Congress vice president that the only thing that Narendra Modi, BJP and RSS were doing in the country was generate anger among the people and divide the country by setting up one religion against another and one caste against another. “But, the fact remains the nation belongs to all of us – every religion, caste, community and every region. Everyone should feel that the country is theirs,” he said.