Govt, opp parties battle it out on note ban

Govt, opp parties battle it out on note ban

NEW DELHI: Union ministers fanned out across the country to highlight the crackdown on black money to mark the first anniversary of demonetisation today which the BJP celebrated as ‘Anti Black Money Day’ while the Congress-led opposition observed it as ‘Black Day’ with street protests.

One year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his decision to demonetise high value currency notes, there were emotional speeches and number crunching and some poetry besides protests by the opposition parties. Key BJP ally Shiv Sena also joined the protests in Maharashtra.

All major opposition parties, social organisations, farmer groups, mediapersons, NGOs, civil society activists and individuals organised massive protests across Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra on Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of demonetisation, even as the government launched an advertising blitzkrieg lauding its move of November 8 last year.

The various forms of protests included processions, funerals, ‘barsi memorial prayers’, ‘shraadh’ of the spiked Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, mass tonsuring of heads, human chains, besides a flood of messages, songs, cartoons and jokes on social media networks castigating demonetisation.

In Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik, Sangli, Kolhapur and other major cities activists of the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Aam Aadmi Party, leftist and socialist parties, farmers organisations and even the ruling ally Shiv Sena organised processions with thousands of people joining.

At the Azad Maidan in Mumbai, the Congress and the NCP organised memorial prayers mourning the ‘demise’ of the erstwhile Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes exactly a year ago.

Elaborate ‘shraadh’ rituals were witnessed in Mumbai and Nashik with Hindu priests chanting holy mantras and the gathering mourning the loss of the old notes, while in Aurangabad political activists joined a mass tonsuring ceremony after a protest.

Congress leaders like Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan, Sanjay Nirupam, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and others took part in various anti-demonetisation protests in different parts of the city and the state, attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party government for the move which has “pushed the economy to the brink”. NCP leaders Ajit Pawar, Dhananjay Munde, Sunil Tatkare and many more organised processions in Mumbai, Pune and other major cities slamming the move which has “rendered millions jobless and created an economic crisis in the country”.

Indians had won a ‘decisive battle’ against black money, Modi said, as the Congress led the opposition charge, calling it a tragedy in which millions had suffered. Modi also said he bowed to the people of India for supporting the measures against corruption and black money.

While opposition leaders such as the Congress’s Rahul Gandhi and P Chidambaram, Trinamool Congress’s Mamata Banerjee, RJD’s Lalu Yadav and Left leaders argued that it had done none of the above and actually helped convert black money into white, the government fielded a host of ministers to counter the barrage of criticism and defend the move.

Congress vice president Gandhi used multiple platforms to slam the exercise. He wrote a signed article in the UK’s Financial Times, took to Twitter and met a cross-section of people in Surat, poll-bound Gujarat’s ‘diamond city’.

“Ek aansu bhi hukumat ke liye khatra hai, tumne dekha nahin aankhon ka samundar hona (Even a single tear is a danger for the government, you have not seen eyes turning into an ocean),” Gandhi said in a tweet.

His party colleague, former Union finance minister Chidambaram, echoed him.

Chidambaram went on to ask if it was ethical to destroy 15 lakh regular jobs during January-April 2017 and force thousands of micro and small businesses to close down.

RJD chief Lalu Yadav also questioned the rationale behind the note ban, saying the move served the purpose of “converting black money into white with greater ease”.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who described demonetisation as “DeMoDisaster” and turned her Twitter display picture black, agreed with him.

The DMK joined in, with Working President MK Stalin saying in Madurai that November 8 was a day that brought despair to 125 crore Indians.

“We got freedom in midnight (in 1947). But, we have lost our freedom in the midnight,” he said in an apparent reference to Modi’s announcement on the evening of November 8 last year.

The Left parties, which took to the streets, said for the first time in India’s history, a government was “celebrating” death and suffering.

Shiv Sena performed a ‘shradh’ or post-death rites at Ramkund, a sacred bathing ghat on the Godavari, in Nashik, in front of enlarged pictures of the scrapped notes.

The government kept its arsenal ready too.

Among the ministers who came out in defence of the decision were Nirmala Sitharaman, Suresh Prabhu, Nitin Gadkari, Prakash Javadekar and Manohar Parrikar.

BJP president Amit Shah, who was in Junagadh, Gujarat, launched a signature campaign to mark the ‘anti-black money day’ and said he supported the prime minister’s commitment for a “new India, free from corruption and black money”.

Union minister Gadkari, who holds multiple portfolios, took up the fight in Mumbai.

The government’s demonetisation decision had led to 58 per cent growth in digital transactions and an increase in the number of tax payers, he said.

His colleague, Defence Minister Sitharaman, was in Chennai and hit out at former prime minister Manmohan Singh over his criticism of demonetisation.

Prabhu, Union commerce and industry minister, was in Jaipur, HRD Minister Javadekar was in Bangalore and Goa Chief Minister Parrikar stepped into the battle from his perch, saying demonetisation had struck a blow to anti-India forces and empowered the poorest of the poor.

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