'Where is Black Money?' Asks Opposition After RBI's Figures on Demonetisation

New Delhi: The Opposition parties, with CPI(M) and Congress at the forefront, on Wednesday, took up the cudgels against Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Reserve Bank of India revealed that Rs 15.28 lakh crore or 99 per cent of the Rs 15.44 lakh crore scrapped currency notes, came back into the system after demonetisation.

CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury took to Twitter, and termed demonetisation as an "anti-national act", asking the Prime Minister, "All this for what."

"99.9% of the notes back in the banking system. 100s died in queues. The poor suffered the most," Yechury wrote on Twitter.

In a follow-up tweet, Yechury wrote that demonetisation brought "shock" to the economy, "workers lost their jobs". "India can never forgive Modi govt for this anti-national act."

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram didn't just hit out at RBI for having "recommended" demonetisation but also said: "RBI 'gained' Rs 16000 crore, but 'lost' Rs 21000 crore in printing new notes! The economists deserve Nobel Prize."

"99% notes legally exchanged," Chidambaram wrote, asking, "Was demonetisation a scheme designed to convert black money into white?"

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala shared a newspaper snippet on Twitter in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked for 50 days addressing a gathering in Panaji, Goa.

On Independence Day this year, the Prime Minister referred to his government's demonetisation drive, saying Rs "3,00,000 lakh crore had come back to the banking system".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, in a shocking move, on November 8, 2016, declared all 500 and 1000-rupee notes as illegal in a fight against black money, counterfeit currency and terror money.