Guj Cong stages protest against demonetisation

The Gujarat unit of Congress Tuesday staged a protest outside the regional office of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) here to mark the second anniversary of demonetisation.

The opposition party also held similar protests in other parts of the state.

The demonstrations were part of the Congress's nation-wide protest held on November 9 against the note ban.

Congress state party spokesman Manish Doshi said the Gujarat unit held the protest on Tuesday as it could not organise it on November 9 due to the 'bhai dooj' festival.

"Two years after demonetisation was inflicted on the people of this country, we want to know who really benefited from this decision?" state unit president of the party Amit Chavda asked.

He said demonetisation caused a setback to the Indian economy and affected small and medium businesses.

"As against the claims made while justifying the decision, demonetisation neither weeded out black money nor removed fake currency," he said.

Contrary to it, the move led to inflation, joblessness and affected small businesses.

Party workers gathered outside different city and district centres and shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the NDA government.

They distributed pamphlets and asked the affected people to share their experiences.

On November 8, 2016, in an unscheduled live nationally televised address to the nation, Modi had announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will be scrapped from the midnight, which he said was for a "fight against corruption, black money and fake currency".

Earlier this year, the RBI admitted that as much as 99.3% of the scrapped currency had returned to the banking system, prompting the opposition to dub the demonetisation initiative as a "money-laundering" scam.