Ram Madhav targets Rahul over defending dynastic politics

Without naming Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi who defended dynastic politics in India at a function in the US, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav on Tuesday said the opposition's love for dynasty and black money were strange.

At a book release function here, Madhav strongly defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi's November 8 last year decision to spike high-denomination currency notes in a bid to curb unaccounted and hidden wealth.

He said the decision was "politically risky" for the BJP "but it has not affected us politically at all".

"The opposition thought it (demonetisation) will harm us politically and we will lose all the elections after demonetisation, thinking that those long queues outside ATMs and banks had actually become opposition parties' overnight vote bank.

"They tried to stall the parliament for a full session. One full session was wiped out over the issue of black money in this country," Madhav said after releasing the book, "Demonetisation: A Means to an End?" by economist Ramgopal Agarwala.

He said the "entire country was surprised" to see how the opposition parties had rallied against Modi's "transformative" decision to clean the Indian economy.

The senior BJP leader said while speaking against demonetisation, the opposition parties were actually defending black money.

"Opposition has the love for black money, strange love for black and dynasty. Love for these things of the opposition is surprising. But that is the way of our opposition in the country," he said, referring to Gandhi's address to students at the University of California, Berkeley, defending dynastic politics in India.

Madhav acknowledged "some difficulties" in the aftermath of the demonetization of 86 per cent of currency notes in the country but said no transformation could have taken place without any pain.

"The results have been good for the economy. There are certain difficulties. We will overcome those. But this is the way to go about. I won't say all the black money has been wiped out. The RBI says 99 per cent of currency notes are back in the system. The black has been disclosed," he said, adding those who have deposited huge stashes of cash in banks will have to pay the penalty.

The book Madhav released seeks to answers whether the decision to call back 1,000 and old 500 rupee notes was a disastrous blunder or a leap forward and proposes what next should be done to curb corruption and black money in India.

--IANS

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