GDP plunge the 'scary result' of demonetisation: Rahul Gandhi

Hitting out at the BJP government, Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said the sharp fall in the GDP and a sustained attack on the unorganised sector were the “scary results” of demonetisation announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016.

"One of the scary results of the dice that was thrown on November 8, 2016 has become evident on August 31, 2020,” the former Congress President said referring to the 23.9% fall in first quarter GDP numbers when compared to last year.

Rahul said the hidden agenda of demonetisation was to deliberately harm the informal sector that survived on hard cash.

READ: India's GDP shrinks to 2014 level when PM Narendra Modi took reins

“Our informal sector, which is the sector of an unorganised economy, runs on cash. Whether it is the small shopkeeper, farmer or labourer, he or she works with cash,” he said.

“The second target of demonetisation was to wipe out cash from the system from the informal or the unorganised sector. The Prime Minister himself has said that he wants a cashless India. However, if India goes cashless, the informal sector would be destroyed,” Rahul said in the 3:14 minute video.

READ: India reeling under 'Modi-made disasters': Rahul Gandhi

The former Congress president has been trying to demystify complex issues such as Chinese transgressions in Ladakh and the state of the economy through a series of short videos.

The video released on Thursday was the second in the series on the economy.

Congress kept up its attack on the Modi government with chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala accusing it of pushing the country towards “financial emergency”.

READ: Scale of shrinkage in GDP worrying

“There are dark clouds of economic decay all around us. Lives, livelihoods and jobs have been ravaged. Businesses and small and medium industries lie dilapidated. The Economy stands destroyed as GDP has been razed and mowed down. India is being pushed towards a ‘financial emergency’,” Surjewala told reporters here.

He accused the Modi Government of plundering the economy in the last six years through “acts of frauds”.

“The Government now describes its criminal ineptitude and culpable incompetence as an ‘Act of God’. Sadly, this is the only Government in the past 73 years which blames ‘God’ for its own frauds and bluster,” the Congress leader said.