State BJP president laxman Gilua said on Wednesday that demonetisation announced on November 8 last year and brought into effect the very next day was one of the bravest and historic moves in Independent India.
After Ranchi Mahanagar unit of the party celebrated first anniversary of demonetisation at Albert Ekka Chowk in city and orgasnised 'Anti-Black Money Day', Gilua said that demonetisation was a courageous decision which required an utterly courageous visionary leader like Prime Minister Narendra Modi for such a decision to be taken.
He said that the decision taken a year ago had not only broken backbone of naxal activities in states like Jharkhand, but had also brought incidents like stone pelting in Kashmir to almost an end.
"Unlike the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whose Government couldn't set-up Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate issues related to black money despite continued chidings from the Supreme Court of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision within few months under his leadership. Not only this, even Congress-led Government had thought of demonetisation once upon a time but couldn't get courage to do so. This clearly reflects differences between the approaches of both the parties against issues like black money," said Gilua.
The State BJP president also flaunted around a dozen achievements of demonetisation in form of data and said that the decision exposed 2.24 lakh forged shell companies and 37,000 companies involved in Hawala transactions and black money.
"Moreover, the agencies have noticed 23.22 lakh bank accounts depositing around Rs 3.68 lakh crores of suspicious black money during in due period. Cashless transaction has seen a jump of 58 percent in August this year in comparison to the same month last year, while tax authorities have welcomed more than 91 lakh new tax-payers in last one year," said Gilua where State BJP spokesperson Pratul Shahdeo, Mahanagar BJP president Manoj Mishra and others were also present.
The party also praised decisions taken by the State government right after demonetisation to counter cash crunch in bank branches by sending choppers to Patna to fetch new currencies.
Though Gilua couldn't present exact data as to how and at what extent cashless transactions have taken shape in the State, he expressed satisfaction over the Government's steps towards reducing dependence of customers and consumers on cash in the State.