Pondicherry chief-minister Narayanaswamy has attacked that the BJP-led Centre by stating that it brought demonetization in November last year mainly to help major corporate companies to get unlimited concessions and not to eradicate black money.

On the first anniversary of the Centre’s demonetization announcement (made on 08th November last year), the DMK and the Congress launched joint protest in Puducherry yesterday. Narayanaswamy took part in the protest meeting during when he was highly critical of the Centre’s various actions.

“Demonetization drive caught the people unawares and affected the poor, the working classes and farmers in a very bad manner. People were made to run from pillar to post across many Banks and ATMs in their respective localities to exchange their old currencies; they faced difficulties even in withdrawing their own hard-earned money. We can’t overlook that 159 precious lives were lost across the country,” he said.

Known as ‘Airport Swamy’ during his days as Union Minister in the erstwhile Congress-led UPA Govt.’s tenure at the Centre, Narayanaswamy said that even a buffoon wouldn’t have declared that 86% of the existing currency notes in usage would become invalid overnight. “The move was aimed basically to benefit huge corporate companies and to provide them with all sorts of concessions,” he alleged.