Margao, Dec 17: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday claimed to have "busted" the demonetization myth saying it was an ingenious "method" devised by the "super planner" Narendra Modi to "snatch money from the poor and channelize it to the super rich".
Speaking at Fatorda at the concluding function of the Jan Jagruti Yatra organized by the state unit of the Congress party, Gandhi in his speech that lasted over 30 minutes dwelt largely on the demonetization issue terming it as an "attack" on the common man.
"This demonetization drama is not an exercise against black money. It's an attack on 99% of honest Indians, an attack on the cash economy, an attack on powerless people of India," Gandhi said.
Accusing the prime minister of not allowing him to speak in Parliament for nearly a month, Gandhi proffered to unravel the truth behind black money and demonetisation.
"All cash is not black money, and all black money is not cash," Gandhi said, further explaining that black money is mostly in the hands of "those 50 families, those 1 percent of India's population" and not with the rest 99 percent of Indians. Without naming the 50 families, Gandhi said "these are the people who fly to foreign land alongwith Modi and strike business deals."
"Only six percent of black money is in cash; 94 percent of black money is in real estate, gold, and in overseas banks. And Narendra Modi knows it too well. In the last election (campaign), Modi didn't speak of black money. He had then said that most black money was stashed away in overseas banks, and that he would bring it back and deposit Rs 15 lakh in every Indian citizen's account. I want to ask how many of you have got those promised Rs 15 lakhs?" Gandhi questioned.
He further dared Modi to place before Parliament the list of black money account holders provided by banks in Switzerland to the government of India. "Place the list of those 'chors' in Parliament," he demanded.
Criticising Modi's claims of demonetisation being a "surgical strike" on corruption and black money, Gandhi likened the move to "fire bombing" tactics deployed in the second world war.
"Modi's fire bombing has destroyed India. He has set the homes of the poor on fire," Gandhi said, adding that while fishing and tourism industry in Goa have been finished, similar was the fate of the automobile industry in Pune, cycle industry in Punjab, leather industry in Nagpur and carpet industry in Mirzapur.
And pray, why did you resort to this fire bombing? Gandhi asked before venturing to explain the reason.
"To save the eight lakh crores of rupees that is in the hands of super rich people," Gandhi said referring to the bad loans marked as non performing assets by the banks.
"When a poor farmer is unable to repay his small loan, you take action against him to recover the money. And when these super rich people fail to repay the eight lakh crores, you call it NPAs and waive it off. Because of this, banks have crashed... So Modi came out with a novel idea to revive the banks. As you cannot recover the money from these super rich families, the best way is to snatch money from the poor and give it to the banks. Garibon se paisa khincho, amiron ko paisa sincho. That was the motive behind demonetisation," Gandhi elaborated.
Picking holes in the cashless economy propounded by Modi, Gandhi said that 5-6 percent of the amount deducted in every digital transaction would again land in the hands of "those one percent of the people." He demanded that cashless economy should not deal a blow to the common man.
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