The BJP, which had stopped trumpeting the efficacy of demonetisation, hailed the Supreme Court’s verdict on Monday and used it to slam the Congress for running a campaign against the “historic pro-poor move”.

“Will Rahul Gandhi now say sorry for running a campaign against demonetisation, not only in India but also abroad?” former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said immediately after the apex court upheld the validity of the government’s decision to demonetise the currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination.

Prasad described both the judgment and demonetisation as “historic”.

“It is a historic judgment and is in the national interest. The Supreme Court by a majority judgment has dismissed all writ petitions and upheld the constitutional validity of the historic decision by the Narendra Modi government taken in the national interest,” he said.

“The court has said that demonetisation was done for the right cause, to check fake currency, terror funding and black money,” he added.

The BJP had stopped beating the drum for demonetisation after the first anniversary of the decision on November 8, 2017, which was seen as an indirect admission of the economic distress the sudden move had caused.

Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ruling party had celebrated the first anniversary as “anti-black money day”, portraying it as an example of Modi’s bold and decisive leadership.

However, by the second anniversary, the party had stopped making any significant mention of the “landmark decision”.

Modi also stopped making any reference to the note ban in his tweets though many anniversaries of the event had passed.

The Supreme Court judgment on Monday, however, seemed to have handed the party an opportunity to get back at the detractors. Prasad recounted the benefits of demonetisation, terming the move as “pro-poor” and in “national interest”.

“The BJP was very firm in espousing the cause of Shri Narendra Modi ji that demonetisation is designed to serve the poor and to clean the economy,” Prasad said.

He claimed that India had become a global leader in digital payments and gave the credit to demonetisation. He said that the demonetisation policy had inflicted the biggest blow to terrorism by putting a brake on fake currency and black money.

“The share of the informal sector in the economy has reduced from 52 per cent to 20 per cent,” Prasad said.

“The Congress protected and promoted informal economic elements in the country.” Prasad slammed former finance minister and Congress leader P. Chidambaram for referring to the “minority judgment” of the Supreme Court as a “slap on the government’s wrist”.

“Mr Chidambaram focuses on the minority judgment but is silent on the majority judgment. This is unfair, improper and condemnable,” he said, adding that even the dissenting judge had said that the policy was “well-intentioned”.