Demonetisation fire-bombing on citizens, akin to WW-II: Rahul Gandhi

Dubbing demonetisation as fire- bombing on citizens, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday claimed the move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was aimed at snatching money from the poor and giving it to the wealthy.

Addressing a rally here, Rahul compared the hardships faced by people due to note ban with a World War-II tactic, called fire-bombing, wherein cities were destroyed through heavy bombing during nights.

"During the WW-II, around 300 to 400 fighter planes used to drop large number of bombs on a city during night to destroy it within minutes. I want to tell Modiji he has done similar fire-bombing on India's downtrodden, poor people, farmers, women and middleclass citizens" he said.

In his speech, Rahul alleged the Central government "deliberately" stalled cash dispensation from banks and ATMs to keep it in the banks for at least six to seven months "so that banks can write off loans of rich families".

According to Rahul, only 6% black money is in cash while 94% is in the form of real estate, gold, diamonds, or is parked in bank accounts abroad.

He also claimed that one per people or 50 rich families, are holding that black money while remaining 99% population are honest.

"When people started demanding Rs 15 lakhs as promised during the Lok Sabha polls, Modiji came up with this gimmick, which he termed as surgical strike on corruption and black money. But, instead of targetting 94% black money, he targetted remaining 6%" said Rahul.

"Modiji took his aim on those honest 99%, not those 1% rich people having that black money. This 1% had defaulted on loans of Rs 8 lakh crore. Now, Modiji wants to write off those loans of 50 rich families. Modi will not touch them, because these 50 families helped him in becoming PM," he alleged.

Rahul said the decision of scrapping high value banknotes was neither aimed to curb corruption and black money, nor the 1% rich people, but the honest, the down-trodden, the farmers and the poor workers of the country.

"Demonetisation is all about snatching money from the poor and giving it to the rich. The real objective of the note ban is help this 1% people," alleged Rahul.