Chennai: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday declared all those opposing demonetisations and observing it as a black day are in fact in favour of black money.

This includes all the opposition parties, she said, briefing media persons in Chennai. It is a matter of concern that former prime minister Manmohan Singh had turned a blind eye to corruption in his government and if he is against demonetisation is really disappointing, the defence minister said.

On November 8 last year, prime minister Narendra Modi had withdrawn all Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination currency notes and introduced in their place new Rs 2000 and Rs 500 notes with an intention to attack black money in the society as also to check terror funding.

The opposition parties including the DMK in Tamil Nadu are observing November 8 as black day as demonetisation had caused untold misery to the common man and eventually led to thousands of people losing jobs and livelihood.

Sitharaman said the government had announced voluntary disclosure scheme last year urging people to declare their unaccounted money/assets with September 30, 2016 as the last date. Demonetisation only followed this deadline, she said.

On double impact of demonetisation and GST, she said, “when we came to power opposition questioned why the GST bill was not passed. And they had also asked us on bringing out black money.”

When government acted on the two, now people are saying that the two events should have been done in gaps.

Digital payments she said had eliminated bogus payments. Now, 20 per cent more black money is being confiscated than before demonetisation, the minister said.

She said the BJP government’s fight against black money will continue and the finance ministry is looking into the complaints on transaction fee charged on people on digital payments. She admitted demonetisation did have an impact on the country’s economy but after one quarter the negative impact has started to taper down.

Opposition leader DMK working president MK Stalin condemned the demonetisation and said the decision put 120 crore people in distress. The BJP government had curbed entire cash flow in the economy, which has caused permanent hurt to the economy and to people, he said addressing a huge rally at Madurai, some 600 km from Chennai.