Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Friday staged a day-long sit-in in front of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) office here to protest against the 2016 decision of the Centre to demonetise high-value currency notes.
Senior leaders of the Odisha Congress staged the dharna at the RBI office to remind the public about the failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation decision taken two years back.
Speaking to reporters at the dharna site, OPCC president Niranjan Patnaik said, “The PM had told the people of the country that demonetisation was meant to tackle counterfeit currencies and black money. Most of the demonetised notes came back to the RBI. So, where is the black money? GDP growth has halted. Unemployment is sky high. Did it benefit the country? It is our duty to inform the people about the state of the economy. The country is facing bad days instead of the promised good days.”
Several other Congress leaders also raised slogans against the BJP government citing the failure of the note ban decision.
Former Union Minister and Congress leader Srikant Kumar Jena said that former PM Manmohan Singh had predicted that the GDP growth would receive a setback by demonetisation and it proved true.
The Congress working president in the state, Chiranjib Biswal, said, “We will try to mitigate the effects of demonetisation if UPA comes to power. It is becoming clear that demonetization has failed. Small traders are the worst-hit and are still facing its impact.”
Lashing out at the statements of Congress leaders, the BJP’s in-charge in Odisha, Arun Singh, said contrary to Congress claims, India has benefitted much from demonetisation. “Income Tax returns have almost doubled and there is a steep jump in tax collections,” he added.