Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asked actor and aspiring politician Kamal Haasan to first understand fully the implications and advantages of the BJP-led Centre’s last year’s demonetization drive before criticizing it. “The Centre is determined to continue with its anti-black money drive,” she asserted.

Speaking to newsmen in Chennai, Nirmala said that the demonetization drive announced last November by the Prime Minister wasn’t something which was done overnight. “It was common knowledge that black-money was always stacked in Rs.500 and Rs.1000 denominations and hence the decision to ban such notes was taken by the Centre,” she explained.

“The move has resulted in unearthing unaccounted black money. It was also done to encourage economic transparency of the Government. During the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP promised the people that it would do everything at its behest to eradicate black money and the purpose of demonetization drive was mainly to achieve this. We are determined to continue our activities in this regard,” she asserted.

It may be recalled that Kamal supported the demonetization drive initially but regretted a few weeks back stating that he had ‘erred’ in supporting the drive. “It was a good idea but the process of implementing it was wrong,” Kamal had said. Responding to Kamal, the Minister asked Kamal Haasan to first fully understand the implications/after-effects of demonetization before commenting about it.