Govt. has reached level of desperation to overcome blunder of demonetisation: Robert Vadra

Strongly condemning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation move and its effects, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law and businessman Robert Vadra on Monday said the government has reached a level of desperation to overcome the blunder of the drive.

"The Govt seems to have reached its levels of desperation to overcome the initial blunder it created, through the unplanned and unthought process of demonetisation," Vadra said in his Facebook post.

Hitting out hard at the Centre, Vadra said first the government offered sops to push people to use Debit/Credit cards and when the people started using more of cashless means, now lack of coordination with banks and their policies is forcing petrol pump owners to adopt these drastic steps.

"What was the whole meaning to offer 0.75 percent discount and then the banks start charging MDR one percent from petrol pumps?

I dont see any rational, do you?" he added.

Vadra's statement comes after petrol pumps refused to accept credit cards and debit cards payments for fuel purchase.

The Petrol Pumps Association yesterday deferred its decision of not accepting card payment for fuel purchase till January 13 after banks deferred to levy the transaction Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charge.

Earlier in December, Vadra took to Facebook to lash out at the government over the demonetisation drive.

He said the change in rules has turned financial institutes to interrogation offices and it's sad to see people suffering due to whims and fancies of the government.

His post slammed the government's demonetisation drive and stated, "This shows demonetisation was completely unplanned. RBI and government are clueless".