The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday alleged that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has “lied” to the nation about the total amount of notes in circulation and said that the demonetisation drive is the biggest scam which broke the backbone of the country’s economy.
Addressing a Press conference, national spokesperson and senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said that the RBI’s annual report for 2016-17 claims that during demonitisation notes of `1,000 and `500 worth `15.44 lakh crore were in circulation and of this `15.28 lakh crore has come back to the banks contradict the earlier figures.
Singh said after demonitisation, the RBI had said `14.18 lakh crore were in circulation, but now the RBI has raised the figure to `15.44 lakh crore which means a surplus of `1.1 lakh crore.
“What explains this discrepancy. RBI is lying to the country. Is this the amount of additional currency the RBI has received in counterfeit notesIJ” Singh asked and claimed besides the surplus, “`21,000 crore was spent in printing new notes. The total amounts to `1.31 lakh crore.”
“This is not just a failure of economics, it is a monumental failure of the policy. The Central Government is answerable to the people of India, and they must explain this massive loss,” he said.
Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh said the claims of the Government headed by the latter that demonitisation will curb black money and terror-funding in the country proved “hoax”. “Nothing has changed on the ground in the past 10 months. We (AAP) have been saying since day one that demonetisation is the biggest scam of India. The Prime Minister should apologise to the nation,” Singh further added.