Arun Jaitley attacked the CPI (M) MP Mohammad Salim over his cashless economy remarks. (Source: IE image)

Attacking the CPI (M) MP Mohammad Salim over his cashless economy remarks, Union Finance Minister said that he has not seen any Marxist talking about virtues of cash, expect in India. Jaitlely said, “Nowhere in the world, (a) Marxist would talk about virtues of cash. Only in India, you hear it.

Jaitley was in no mood to take any criticism over the demonetisation move and government’s idea to convert into a digital economy as he also slammed Salim’s part colleague P Karunakaran. “Mr Karunakaran, the trouble with the Marxists is that they think that the poor people will vote for them, and therefore India must remain in poverty. The problem with you Marxists is that you want to celebrate poverty,” he had said earlier.

He also cleared that RBI hasn’t come up with the amount of scrapped notes deposited with the banks yet because they want be sure about the data so that a wrong number is not announced. He also mentioned that collection figures with regard to income tax, excise tax and realisation of VAT by states, with the exception of two states, have gone up post demonetisation.

You may also want to watch:

He also said that despite the estimations of experts, Indian economy hasn’t suffered much due to the demonetisation move and even during the cash crunch the size of formal economy was increasing. economy was increasing.

When asked about the merger of Rail Budget and General budget, he said that Britishers started the practice of presenting separate budgets only because railways was the major mode of transport but now other modes are in the same space too. He also agreed to the fact that there should be a separate discussion on this matter in the Parliament.