Chennai: Castigating former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for terming demonetisation as “monumental mismanagement” and “organised loot and legalised plunder”, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday turned the tables against him saying “organised plunder” took place only when he was steering the country for a decade.
Speaking to reporters on the first anniversary of demonetisation, which is being observed by the NDA Government as “Anti-Blackmoney Day”, she targeted Singh for his “strong comments” on the decision to announce that higher denomination would no longer be legal tender.
Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced on November 8 that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes have been demonetised as part of efforts to curb blackmoney.
Nirmala also accused Singh of “being silent” for ten years and not doing enough to curb blackmoney despite the Supreme Court nudging him to constitute a Special Investigation Team to investigate cases relating to illegal money.
“Dr Manmohan Singh has used strong words like legalised plunder and organised loot. Where did these happen? Everyone knows where it happened and they (UPA) did not leave anything from spectrum to coal to everything. Courts are hearing cases related to these (scams) and we all know what was Dr Manmohan Singh doing then,” Nirmala told a crowded press conference at the Tamil Nadu BJP Headquarters.
“Dr Manmohan Singh was just a tool and someone (Sonia Gandhi) was directing him from behind. When he was presiding over a regime that indulged in legalised plunder and organised loot, he looked elsewhere as if nothing was happening. And now he demeans demonitisation. Dr Manmohan Singh, I am very disappointed with you”, she said.
The Defence Minister said demonetisation did not happen out of the blue and maintained that curbing blackmoney was one of the promises made by the BJP during its 2014 General Elections campaign and was part of the manifesto. The move dealt a major blow to terrorism as it took away the bigger denomination currencies that funded terror.
“The biggest achievement of demonitisation is that terrorism has been badly hit and the stonepelters, in thousands, have reduced because their cash flow was cut”, she said.
The Minister was responding to Singh’s comments in Ahmedabad on Tuesday that demonetisation was a “monumental mismanagement” and “organised loot and legalised plunder”. Singh, a renowned economist and one who is credited with opening up the Indian market in 1991 as Finance Minister in the P V Narasimha Rao cabinet, has been criticising demonetisation for the past one year and had even predicted that the GDP would take a dip of 2 per cent.
Her press conference was part of nation-wide efforts by the BJP to reach out to people and explain to them the benefits of demonetisation and how it helped “curb blackmoney.”
Listing out the steps taken by the BDA Government to curb blackmoney, Sitharaman said the first decision of the Cabinet led by Narendra Modi was to appoint a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to come out with steps to eradicate the menace and that several steps including an amnesty scheme were announced.
