Cong workers stage protests against note ban; will probe if party comes to power, says Surjewala

Congress cadres Friday staged protests against demonetisation in several states a day after the second anniversary of the note ban with one senior leader calling it a "Modi-made disaster" that will be probed if the party comes to power at the Centre in 2019.

The protests were staged near the offices of the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) in Delhi and the state capitals.

With no let up in the war of words between the government and the opposition over the ban of high-value notes announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016, the Samajwadi Party(SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) also joined the Congress in dubbing the exercise a "failure".

Leaders of the SP and BSP demanded an apology from the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) for the hardship caused to the poor. "Demonetisation broke the back of the poor," they said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday staunchly defended the demonetisation drive, saying 'prophets of doom' have been proven wrong as hard data of two years showed an increase in tax base, greater formalisation of the economy and India retaining the fastest growing economy tag for the fifth year in a row.

The BJP also posed 10 questions to the Congress, asking why it finds merit in protesting every "anti-corruption" measure of the Modi government.

Senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala dubbed demonetisation as the "biggest scam of independent India" and claimed it had pushed the country towards economic disaster.

"The PM and BJP had claimed demonetisation was taken to eradicate black money and fake currency. None of the objectives of demonetisation, like eradication of black money and fake currency in circulation or breaking the backbone of Naxalism and terror activities, have been achieved," he told a news conference in Bhopal,