Reacting to the Supreme Court judgment that upheld the demonetisation exercise as “historic”, the BJP on Monday said it was vindicated after years of allegations against the exercise.
The party fielded Ravi Shankar Prasad to attack the Congress, who asked whether Rahul Gandhi will tender an apology for the campaign against demonetisation.
The Supreme Court in a 4:1 majority verdict upheld the government's 2016 decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination notes, saying the decision-making process was not flawed.
Prasad said that the demonetisation exercise was a “historic decision” and that it was “in national interest.” “The Supreme Court has held that this decision taken in national interest is valid. Will Rahul Gandhi now say sorry for his campaign against demonetisation. He spoke against it even abroad,” Prasad said.
He added that the motive behind demonetisation was ‘gareeb kalyan.’ “The demonetisation exercise was designed to serve the interest of the poor and to bring cleanness to our economy,” he said. Prasad said that the exercise was done to remove fake currency, counter terror funding and black marketing.
Prasad also hit out at Congress leaders, especially former Union finance minister P Chidambaram, for highlighting the minority judgment. They are ignoring with impunity the majority verdict to make incharitable and scandalous statements, he said, slamming Chidambaram.
The effect of the exercise, he added, was that India has today transformed into Digital India. “Just in October, India recorded a great harvest of Rs 730 crore digital transactions amounting to Rs 12 lakh crore. We would like to factually emphasise that 2 lakh 38 thousand shell companies were shut down,” Prasad said.
Even the poor have started using digital payments, and this is the fruit of demonetisation, Prasad claimed. Digital payments were encouraged by the government post-demonetisation, he added.