Patna, Jan. 23: The Congress today launched a frontal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation.

"Modi has not been able to fulfil a single electoral promise he had made, be it bringing back black money stashed in foreign banks or providing employment to two crore youths every year. Nor did he do anything regarding support price against yield to farmers," Congress general secretary C.P. Joshi said. "The Prime Minister has now brought into play the new stunt of demonetisation to hide his failures."

Joshi described demonetisation as a "big scam" aimed at helping "the Adanis, Ambanis and the Prime Minister's other corporate friends".

"Find out who has taken Rs 1.86 lakh crore and Rs 96,000 crore loans from banks. Calculate if the interest rate is brought down, who will benefit in crores. Obviously the corporate houses which have taken loans in crores will reap the actual benefit of interest rate cut. The government got the money from common people, middle and poor classes through banks and will now use the money to help Modi's corporate friends, who are finding it hard to repay the debts," Joshi said while addressing the vedna (anguish) rally at the party's office here.

In a signal that it was not impressed with chief minister Nitish Kumar's support for the note ban and Modi returning the favour by praising Nitish for prohibition, the Congress emphasised the need to build its own strength.

"Our party has done well in the (Grand) Alliance but we should no longer move forward on the crutches of the JDU and the RJD. Demonetisation has offered us the opportunity to reach out to every home and make people aware of its ill effects. Demonetisation has broken the back of the common people and has reduced the GDP growth rate by 1 per cent," said legislature party leader Sadanand Singh.

Ashok Choudhary, the Bihar Congress president and also a cabinet colleague of Nitish, too, slammed Modi over the note- bandi.

"Narendra Modi and the BJP have driven the country to economic slavery. Many failed to perform marriages and funerals in their families because of demonetisation. This caused problems for people of all sections. The Congress workers should knock on every door to make people aware about Modi's dictatorial way of suddenly banning the high-value notes on November 8," he said.