Demonetization and GST have damaged the Indian economy, says Rahul Gandhi

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was of the opinion that the Modi Government had failed badly in their two most popular regimes that they have bragged about. He mentioned that GST regime and demonetization were two big failures for the economy. He mentioned this while giving a speech to the students of University of California, Berkeley.

Mr. Gandhi said that the Governments’ implementation of various reforms such as demonetization and Goods and Services Tax had put severe pressure on the economy. He mentioned that the country lost as much as 2% in the GDP due to demonetization.

He was of the opinion that the decisions were taken unilaterally by the government without even taking the assistance of Chief Economic Advisor or the cabinet. A decision such as demonetization wiped off 86% of the liquid cash from circulation, which eventually led to tremendous damage. Taking such reckless and dangerous decisions was devastating for the economy, he added.

Gandhi also accused the government that millions of small businesses were wiped out due to demonetization and farmers were hit hard. Agriculture today is in deep stress, and the farmer’s suicides have only increased in the past.

Finance minister, Arun Jaitley, on the other hand, said that the repercussions of demonetization were as expected and would help the economy in the long term. Jaitley’s comments came after the Reserve Bank of India mentioned that 99% of the currency that was demonetized had come back to the system. But he also mentioned that the money getting deposited in the banks did not mean at all that it was all legitimate.

While Mr. Gandhi said that growing at such a pace, India would not be able to create many jobs for the youth. Currently, only 500 jobs were being created every day whereas 33,000 youngsters were joining the job market daily.

At the end of his speech, he pronounced that India cannot follow the Chinese model and the country needs to create jobs in a democratic environment. India according to him had a lot of potential in the small and medium industry, and the country needs to convert these SMEs into international companies.