Modi must explain cash shortage to nation: Congress

The Congress on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government must explain to the nation the cash shortage in ATMs across the country.

It said demonetisation was the only original idea of PM Modi and the result of it was that even after 18 months, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was yet to finish the counting of demonetised notes that came back into the system.

"The new notes are not available. People are paranoid and insecure about their money. They do not know the fate of their hard-earned money which they deposited in the banks," said Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera.

He said that every hour the government and its mouthpieces came up with new excuses, new reasons and new theories.

"According to a recent data, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the richest party. The only project that got completed in the past four years is party's seven-storey headquarters," said Khera.

"They spend crores on event management and election management...and let their friends (like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya) flee the country after looting money. And you tell people it is a temporary problem. Well, it's true because their government is just a temporary one," he added.

Khera said banks were writing to the RBI for the past few weeks that there was shortage of money. "What was it doing? This government has a lot of answering to do. Where does the common man keep his/her money?"

The party also accused the Modi government of indulging in cheap politics on every issue.

"They said ATMs are not calibrated to withdraw Rs 200 notes. They gave the same excuse about Rs 2,000 notes during demonetisation. Why didn't they plan it then? One who only does cheap politics can't run a government," he added.

--IANS

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