Congressional Leader Rahul Gandhi alleged on Thursday that the government’s hidden agenda behind the demonetization was deliberately harming India’s informal sector, which survives on liquid cash.
In his latest video series on the Indian economy, Gandhi called the 2016 demonetization an “attack on India’s poor, farmers, workers and small merchants.”
He claimed that the hidden agenda of demonetization, which saw all the 500 rupee and 1000 rupee notes being scrapped, was to “clear the ground.”
Also read: India reeling under the disasters caused by Modi: Rahul Gandhi
“Our informal sector works with cash. Small merchants and workers survive on cash. The second objective of demonetization was to get money out of the informal sector. Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the nation that he wants a cashless India. If India runs out of cash, the small traders, farmers and workers will die out, ”Gandhi said in his video series.
Short videos are the new communication tools for the former president of Congress to reach a wider audience on social media.
Previously, he had spoken about the India-China border conflict and the informal sector amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
India’s informal or unorganized sector absorbs around 95% of the county’s workforce and is the key to equitable growth.
Also read: The ‘ruin’ of the economy began with demonetization, the government introduced the wrong policies: Rahul Gandhi
Gandhi’s latest series comes in the wake of the Indian economy slumping by a record 23.9% in the first quarter from April to June in the current financial year 2020-21. The slowdown reflected the economic impact of the 68-day Covid-19-induced lockdown restrictions in the first quarter.
Gandhi recounted the ills of millions of people who suffered during demonetization and said that the exercise did not solve the problem of black money. “What did the poor Indians benefit from? Nothing. So who benefited? Only the multimillionaires of the country ”, alleged Gandhi.
“The government used their money to pay off the loans of the billionaires,” he further alleged.
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