On the eve of the sixth anniversary of demonetisation of high value currency notes in India on November 8, 2016, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav claimed on Monday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was losing his sheen and credibility as the wisdom of reality was dawning on the common people.
The SP president said the claims made by the prime minister that demonetisation would unearth and eliminate black money had fallen flat after six years of the monetary shock given to the people by the Central government on November 8 2026.
He said a recent report of the Reserve Bank of India had nailed the lie about the demonetisation spread by the Central government. He said the RBI in its report said not only the demonetisation failed to curb black money, the government objective of reducing the share of cash in the economy had also been defeated.
Akhilesh Yadav said the RBI report said that by the end of October this year the cash held by the people was Rs 30.88 lakh crore which was 71.48 per cent higher than the cash held by the people on November 4, 2016.
The SP chief claimed that demonetisation was a disaster and many eminent economists had criticised the ill-advised move of the Central government. He said the rising volume of cash transactions despite the availability of multiple options of digital transaction, proved that the people had lost faith in the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party government.
Akhilesh Yadav alleged that there was loot of the public money after the demonetisation as many top industrialists borrowed huge money from public sector undertaking banks, turned defaulter and fled the country. He said the PSU banks were now saddled with non-performing assets (NPAs).
Claiming it as an ill effect of the demonetisation, the SP chief claimed that 15 crore people were still deprived of savings bank accounts.
Akhilesh Yadav alleged that the goods and services tax (GST) and demonetisation had together destabilised the Indian economy and this had led to rampant corruption. He said due to the disastrous economic policies of the BJP government, economic inequality was growing while the BJP government continued to lead the people to the garden path of taking the Indian economy to 5 trillion USD.