Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi attacked the move of
demonetisation by the central government implemented on November 2016, alleging
that it helped aid PM Modi’s ‘crony capitalist friends’ and their interests, and ‘destroyed’ the Indian economy, PTI reported.

Gandhi, as well as Congress, have been claiming that the move did
not benefit of the population and had adverse implications for the economy,
which the government has denied time and again.

“This was a lie. The attack was on you, Modi wanted to take your money and give it to his 2-3 crony capitalist friends. You stood in lines, not his crony capitalist friends. You put your money in the banks and PM Modi gave that money to his friends and gave them a loan waiver of Rs 3,50,000 crore,” he claimed.

In the Congress-organised #SpeakUpAgainstDemoDisaster online
campaign, Gandhi questioned in a video how the Bangladeshi economy ‘surprassed’ the Indian economy, because India’s economy used to be one of the best
performing in the world.

“The Government says that the reason is COVID but is that is
the reason then, there is COVID in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the world also.
The reason is not COVID, the reason is ‘Notebandi’ and GST,” PTI quoted Gandhi
as saying.

In a sudden move by the Central Government, November of 2016
saw Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes lose their positions as ‘legal tender’ and
long queues outside banks all over the country awaiting their turn to avail the
newly-introduced Rs 500 and Rs 2000 banknotes.

For the BJP-ruled NDA government in the centre, the idea
behind the move was announced to be turning the ‘black money’, or money illegally
siphoned out of the system and mostly stored using Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations,
back into the system or risk losing the sum concerned.

Significantly, this, along with the attempt to lower the
cash circulation and thereby lowering corruption, has been linked to the NDA
government’s push for ‘cashless economy’ and even ‘digital India’.

Rahul Gandhi also alleged that despite Modi saying it is
a fight against black money, it was not so.