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Priyanka Gandhi demands answers from PM Narendra Modi over falling value of rupee, reminds of his attacks on UPA
She said that during UPAs tenure, Narendra Modi used to link the value of the rupee with the prestige of the government.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday slammed the union government over the value of the rupee reaching its "lowest level ever" against the US dollar, demanding answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue.
The rupee declined 18 paise to breach the 86-mark against the US dollar for the first time on Friday. It settled at 86.04 against the US currency.
"The value of the rupee against the dollar has reached its lowest level ever. For the first time in history, the value of one dollar has become 86.4 rupees," Priyanka Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.
She said that during Manmohan Singh's tenure, when the value of one dollar was 58-59 rupees, Narendra Modi, who was then-Gujarat CM, used to link the value of the rupee with the prestige of the government.
The Congress general secretary pointed out at PM Modi's attacks on the then UPA government a decade earlier, saying that he used to say that ‘he knows everything and the currency of any country cannot fall like this.’
"Today he himself is the prime minister and all the records on the fall of the rupee have been broken. He should answer to the people of the country," she said in the X post.
The fall of the rupee
The rupee declined 18 paise to breach the 86-mark against the US dollar for the first time on Friday as it failed to resist pressure from a stronger American currency and huge outflow of foreign funds.
The rupee settled at 86.04 against the US currency.
Surging crude oil prices overseas and negative sentiment in domestic equity markets also weighed down on the Indian currency, forex traders said, according to a PTI report.
Also, the dollar strengthened on increased demand amid the anticipation of restrictive trade measures by the new US administration after Donald Trump takes over as president on January 20.
At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 85.88, hit the intra-day peak of 85.85 before breaching the 86-mark to settle at the lowest-ever level of 86.04 against the greenback, 18 paise lower from its previous close.
On Thursday, the rupee gained 5 paise to settle at 85.86 against the US dollar, recovering from the steep decline of 17 paise in the preceding session.
