Congress holds nationwide protest against Demonetisation, observes 'black day'

The Congress party workers on Friday held a nationwide protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central Government's demonetisation drive, which had its second anniversary on Thursday.

The Congress workers took to streets in Mumbai, Chennai and Chandigarh, Patna, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Bengaluru and New Delhi and protested against the note ban.

The workers of Himachal Pradesh division of the Congress, in Shimla observed black day. Wearing black bands on their heads, the party workers carried placards and raised anti-demonetisation slogans.

Himachal Pradesh Congress spokesperson Naresh Chauhan said that now people have realised that Prime Minister Narender Modi has deceived them and that no black money has been recovered as they propagated before 2014 general election.

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who protested along with the Congress workers in the national capital, told ANI, "People are unhappy with the BJP government. Demonetisation created a huge loss. We are protesting against it because Indian economy suffered badly because of it. We need to have a telescope to find a common man, who can stand up and say that he profited due to demonetisation. Only few people earned money due to this move."

While staging a protest outside the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) headquarters in New Delhi, several Congress workers were also detained.

"It's shocking. I have never seen this kind of repression. We are a democracy. We should have been allowed to raise our voice against a wrong and reckless decision, which led to disaster. Prime Minister Modi is responsible for inflicting that pain on Indian people - there was loss of jobs, loss of lives, loss of businesses. Poor people were hurt the most," said Congress' Anand Sharma.

Similar were the scenes in other cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Ranchi, Patna, Chandigarh and Patna. There also Congress workers raised slogans criticizing the Centre over demonetisation drive.

While addressing a press conference in Guwahati, Congress leader P Chidambaram said, "Demonetisation was an ill-conceived move, inspired by one or more persons who are totally unqualified on matters concerning money and the economy."

On November 8, 2016, the Centre had declared Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as non-legal and introduced new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes. Since then, various opposition parties have been highly critical of the Centre's move, while the members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies have backed the decision.

On the second anniversary of demonetisation on Thursday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley strongly defending demonetisation, said that the note ban had a huge impact on formalising the Indian economy.