PANAJI: Rubbishing the claim of the Union government that terrorist activities have been hit hard by the demonetisation move, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Digvijaya Singh said here on Wednesday that the terrorists use digital currency like Bitcoin (currency largely used with ease to conduct unregulated transactions, across international borders) and demonetisation will hardly have any effect on terror activities.
The Senior Congress leader in-charge of Goa blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for putting poor Indians to hardship through an ill-implemented demonetisation.
“Most of the drug peddling and terror activities and illegal activities are now done through Bitcoin. It is dealt through different software and it is impossible to trace. Can the Prime Minister, government of India and particularly the NSA be so naive as to believe that terrorism can be eradicated by simply demonetisation,” Mr. Singh asked sarcastically at a press conference here during his visit to review the party’s preparedness for the Assembly elections next year.
Mr. Singh further said that the decision to demonetise currency would not impact terror activities at all, as is proved by the recent cash seizureby the army from a slain terrorist in Bandipore district in Jammu and Kashmir.
“New currency notes have been found in possession of certain terrorists in Kashmir Valley. Where did they get the currency notes from when common people are not getting these currency notes?” asked Mr. Singh.
Mr. Singh said that the party did not oppose demonetisation per se but was disappointed to see that BJP simply did not know how to govern and showed total lack of understanding about what kind of miseries it will inflict on common people by changing nearly 86 per cent of the currency notes in a currency-based economy like India.
He also lamented that because of thoughtless implementation of the scheme by the Central government, as many as 70 people lost their life out of shock and pain of standing in queues before banks for hours despite having money in bank but unable to spend it.
“All this could have been avoided,” said Mr. Singh. The government, he added, should have been aware that black money is primarily generated by non-payment of taxes and that cannot be eradicated by simply demonetising currency.
Mr. Singh also attacked the Goa BJP and the Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and accused them of striking deals with builders by introducing piece-meal changes in building rules favouring some builders.
