Pics: Spoorthi Ullal 
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JS)

Mangaluru, Dec 31: "The decision to demonetise high currency notes has been taken to benefit the BJP leaders and their friends. Without making a study and applying his mind, the Prime Minister has taken the country 20 years back. Now even to withdraw our own money, we have to beg. Narendra Modi is the most inefficient Prime Minister the country has ever seen. We have already waited for 50 days, we cannot wait anymore," said chief whip of Legislative Council Ivan D'Souza.

Addressing media persons at MCC office here on Saturday December 31, Ivan said, "The AICC has given directions to hold protests across the country. Accordingly, protests will be held in all the district headquarters.

"Trying to have a cashless society without strengthening the banking system in the country will not help the economy. We have waited for 50 days but the situation has not changed. The decision of demonetisation has impacted the economy of the country and people are in difficulty. The RBI has not released any data as to how much black money was in the market. This shows that the Prime Minister unilaterally took this decision without looking into any facts and figures.

"According to one estimate, Rs 14,500 crore worth of notes have come back to the RBI. But they do not talk about this anywhere. About Rs 400 crore worth of fake currency was in the market. To get that back, they have taken back Rs 18,000 crore," he said.

"The main aim of Modi was to get back the black money and fake notes. But now they have deviated and are propagating it as a move towards cashless society. Only 12 percent of the people in the country have internet and smartphones. So the question is how far this is justified. Gandhiji's dream was to create employment but now with demonetisation and cashless transactions, small vendors are losing their employment as people increasingly prefer to buy goods and items from supermarkets.