Want black paper on demonetisation, says Sitaram Yechury

New Delhi: Taking on the government full throttle over demonetisation, the CPI(M) on Thursday said that the entire exercise was carried out to turn illegitimate wealth into white money.

“The RBI figures released on Wednesday confirms all we have been saying. Since the Prime Minister keeps talking about black money, we demand that he come out with a black paper on demonetisations,” CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said.

He quoted figures from the RBI report to say that at least Rs 15.28 lakh crore out of Rs 15.44 lakh demonetised money came back into the financial system. “More than 100 percent of demonetised currency is coming back after Bhutanese, Nepalese and cooperative banks currency have been taken in. This shows it is a successful money laundering scheme,” added Mr Yechury. Claiming that demonetisation was the biggest scam of independent India, he stated that BJP members were known to have made bulk deposits of massive amounts just before demonetisation was announced in West Bengal. Mr Yechury said that Mr Modi was responsible for the “misery” of the people due to demonetisation, and added that more than 100 people died in queues, trying to get their own hard-earned money due to the announcement. “Who is responsible? Why there is no compensation? Is there an FIR?”

He also said there was no mention of digitisation on November 8, 2016, announcement but as the economy crashed, the government went out of its way to help “certain selected private companies: under the mask of digitisation. “Instead of steadying a sliding economy, demonetisation pushed it further down a dangerous spiral.

As per old series, this would be around 3.5 per cent GDP growth, worst in a few decades. This is when crude prices are so low,” he said.