Modi government's 'disastrous demonetisation' devastated people: CPI-M

"On the second anniversary of demonetisation, the Indian economy is yet to recover from the disaster imposed on our economy and the people by Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi," the Communist Party of India-Marxist said in a statement.

The Modi government's "disastrous demonetisation" devastated crores of people dependent on daily cash transactions and helped to convert black money into white, the CPI-M said on Thursday.

"On the second anniversary of demonetisation, the Indian economy is yet to recover from the disaster imposed on our economy and the people by Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi," the Communist Party of India-Marxist said in a statement.

"All the claims that it would unearth lakhs of crores of rupees of black money and end corruption have proven to be utterly false.

"On the contrary, with 99.4 per cent of the banned notes back in the system, it is clear that demonetisation has, in fact, been the avenue to convert black money into white, helping the most corrupt," it said.

"On the other hand, crores of people dependent on daily cash transactions have been devastated and more than 35 lakh workers in the unorganized sector lost their livelihood.

"Similarly, the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) have suffered a huge loss in revenue. Nor has there been any impact on terrorist activities due to funding crunch as claimed by Modi at that time.

"On the contrary, official data reveals that incidents of terrorist attacks have more than doubled," the CPI-M said.

The CPI-M also condemns the "shameless defence" being put out by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is equally responsible for the mess in the Indian economy," the statement said.

(With inputs from agencies.)