Alleging that certain people, including those in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, were informed in advance about the government's decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, the Congress on Monday demanded that the bank account details of the saffron party's central office and state units for the period March to September be made public.
"Why is it that none of your big industrialist friends or your officers or ministers in your government or any BJP chief minister or leader is not standing in lines outside banks when the entire country is waiting in those queues? Does this not show where black money really is?" AICC Communications Department in-charge Randeep Surjewala said, posing a question to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Surjewala, at a press conference at the AICC headquarters, claimed that just before the decision to demonetise high denomination notes was announced on November 8, the BJP had deposited Rs one crore in notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination in its account in a bank in Kolkata.
He also said that there had been a spike in bank deposits in September compared to August, which showed that there were people who had prior information of the demonisation move. "In September, 2016, Rs 5,88,600 lakh crore was deposited. According to figures of the RBI, in July, 2016, Rs 96,196 billion was deposited in the banks, and in September, the amount grew to Rs 1,02,082 billion. This unprecedented increase in the amount deposited tells its own story of black money," he said.
Aiming to puncture the Modi government's claims on the amount mopped up through Income Tax Survey and the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme, Surjewala said the UPA government had in 2012-13 and 2013-14, merely through Income Tax Survey and Assessment, collected Rs 1,30,800 crore, which was more than the Rs 1,25,000 crore figure cited for the money accumulated through VIDS.
"The Voluntary Income Disclosure Scheme, which came in 1997, had collected Rs 33,695 crore, which in today's terms would work out to Rs 85,153 crore. This is much more than the Rs 65,250 crore collected by the Modi government," he said.
Surjewala attacked the government for creating a situation of "economic anarchy" because of his "arrogance" and his "dictatorial attitude". "You (Modi) have sought a time of 50 days to tide over this crisis. However, the people of the country are asking who created it in the first place," he said.
He also asked if the government was aware of how many man-hours were being lost because of people spending long hours standing in queues outside banks and the effect that it was having on productivity, and ultimately the development of the country.
