With the winter session having got washed out due to protests against demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday slammed the “brazenness” of the Opposition in openly criticising the Centre’s “anti-graft” steps and drew freely from history to target the Congress and the left for their alleged volte-face on the issue.
Taking the battle into the opposition camp at the BJP parliamentary party meeting, Modi invoked the Wanchoo panel report that recommended demonetisation when Indira Gandhi was PM. He also recalled the support of late communist stalwarts Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Surjeet to such an idea to accuse the current breed of left leaders of compromising with their ideology.
Accusing past and present Congress leaders of holding the party above the country, Modi cited a book to say that when then finance minister YB Chavan went to Indira Gandhi following the Wanchoo committee recommendations and supported demonetisation, she asked, “Only one question. Are no elections to be fought by the Congress party?”
“Tell me,” Modi asked, “if the party is bigger or the country.”
Modi was also unsparing of Manmohan Singh, who recently termed demonetisation an “organised plunder and legalised loot”, saying the former PM advocated strong measures against corruption and black money but did “nothing” during his long 10-year tenure.
Modi recalled Singh’s own comments made in 1991 to argue that even he had used “language of threat” against tax evaders then, but he has now changed his voice. “Why? Because he (Singh) is worried about his party not the country,” Modi said.
Projecting the Congress as a “votary of corruption”, the prime minister said it had announced a law against benami assets in 1988 but never notified it or framed rules and regulations. He also cited the Supreme Court’s observations against the UPA government under Singh over lack of action against black money.
Modi again pitched for digital economy as he appealed to the masses to adopt it as a “way of life” to rid the society of corruption and black money.
Currently, India’s cash-to-GDP ratio is as high as 12%, roughly three times that of even developing countries like Brazil and South Africa, as most transactions in the informal sector of the economy are settled in cash. Reports suggest that the Reserve Bank of India and commercial banks spend around Rs 21,000 crore in currency operations costs a year. According to a study commissioned by MasterCard, which was released early last year, the share of the electronic mode of transactions in the overall payment system have risen to 6.8% from 2.6% in 2007, but still remained far below potential.
While the Opposition is at the forefront of attack on the government, even some economists have expressed apprehension over demonetisation slowing the pace of economic growth and hurting harder the informal sector, which accounts for roughly 45% of the country’s GDP and 80% of jobs. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen called demonetisation a “despotic action”, while former RBI governor Bimal Jalan questioned the timing of and the secrecy around the move. If economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das’ statement on Thursday was any indication, only half of the demonetised notes would be replenished over the next 10-15 days.
While the Congress, followed by the Left, received much of Modi’s flak, he made only few references to regional parties like the Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, which have also been attacking him over demonetisation.
