Opposition parties demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologise to the nation, after the Reserve Bank of India on Wednesday said that 99% of old currency notes had been deposited following demonetisation. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also said that India would not forgive the government for its anti-national act.

“Demonetisation is nothing but a disaster in which 104 innocent people were killed while the corrupt made windfall gains,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said on Twitter. He added that the prime minister should apologise to the nation.

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that the economists who recommended demonetisation deserved a Nobel Prize. “Almost 99% notes legally exchanged! Was demonetisation a scheme designed to convert black money into white?,” he said on Twitter.

CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said that Narendra Modi, who announced the demonetisation scheme, must now take responsibility for its failure. “Modi claimed ownership of demonetisation. He has to take responsibility for the disastrous failure that it has been,” Yechury said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been critical about demonetisation from the the day it was announced, said, “Is not the RBI’s revelation this evening on demonetisation pointing to a big scam? I feel it was totally a flop show.” In a Facebook post, Banerjee wrote, “Hundreds of people lost their lives. Crores of common people – farmers, workers, those engaged in informal sector, small enterprises and other most vulnerable sections of society suffered massive pain.”