Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday claimed that flesh trade and trafficking of women had reduced substantially in the country due to the move, reported PTI.
He also claimed that the economic move brought down the number of stone-pelting incidents in Kashmir and put a check on Naxal activities.
“Flesh trade has nosedived in India. Trafficking of women and girls has gone down considerably,” the law minister told reporters here while listing the “achievements of demonetisation”, a day before the Congress-led opposition’s proposed “Black Day” protest.
“Due to the flesh trade, a huge amount of cash used to flow to Nepal and Bangladesh…Notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 (now junked) were used to make payments in the flesh trade, which has now come down,” he said.
His claims came on the eve of the first anniversary of demonetisation, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
However, his claims were quickly contested by Congress with Manish Tewari asking which department of the government monitored the sex trade.
Tewari tweeted, “If this is indeed true and @rsprasad actually said it could the Hon’ble Law Minister please enlighten us which government department tracks prostitutes & keeps a tab on their earnings. The nation wants to know.”
Mocking the claims on demonetisation success, Tewari said, “f Demonetisation & GST are such a smashing success @narendramodi then why is the GDP clocking 3.7% at the 2004-05 base year?The worst in 38 years back to 1979 levels. Why is investment by domestic corporates in economy at 1990 levels?”
Earlier the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had tweeted calling the note ban a tragedy.
His tweet had read, “Demonetisation is a tragedy. We stand with millions of honest Indians, whose lives & livelihoods were destroyed by PM’s thoughtless act.”