One month of demonetization- Opposition observes ‘Black day’ today

It is a month now since the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to withdraw the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency (which together makes up 86% of the total circulated currency in India) and in its place introduce new Rs 2,000 notes and India is still reeling from a severe cash crunch and the queues outside banks are testimony to the people’s distress. The worst hit ,according to even official statistics are the rural poor who are already suffering from debt.

The ruling BJP government has upto now only made knee jerk responses to the mounting distress and has continued to justify its hasty decision, taken without adequate planning that is mandatory for a country of this size with poor population which neither have bank accounts or can intelligently open accounts in banks.

‘This is not a bold decision, it is a foolish decision’

Today , one month after this chaos set in, the entire opposition has united in protest and decided to observe it as ‘Black Day.’ The protests begin from the Gandhi statue in Parliament. Rahul Gandhi launched one of his most scathing attacks on Modi and commented that this was praised as a bold decision of Modi. ‘But bold decisions can also be foolish decisions and this is a foolish decision.’ He also noted that nearly a 100 lives have been lost post-demonetisation, many workers are losing jobs( L&T alone removed more than a lakh workers) but the PM was laughing.

Pay TM is ‘Pay to Modi!’

Speaking of the Prime Minister’s reasons for the validation of the demonetisation drive, Gandhi said that PM Modi’s narrative had changed. It started by saying that the drive was against black money, then shifted to terrorism, moved to counterfeit currency and was now sitting at the cashless economy The most important beneficiary of demonetization has been the sales of PayTM which skyrocketed and has made tremendous profit. Rahul Gandhi indirectly targeted the pm’s endorsement of PayTM saying that it means Pay to Modi.

Meanwhile the BJP ministers continued their argument of blaming the Opposition for not backing the so called anti-black money drive of government as they have black money to hide. This has been a futile exercise from the beginning- where the BJP is saying that you(the opposition parties) are not with us as all of you have black money to hide.

State has been neglected- Pinarayi Vijayan

The ruling LDF in Kerala will be observing a black day on Thursday in front of district and panchayat offices to protest against the PMO denying permission to the all-party delegation to meet the PM to discuss the co-operative issue. It will be a day and night protest. I

t must be recalled that the cooperative banks which constitute nearly 70% of the banking work in the state of Kerala have been denied right to disperse the new currency, making thousands suffer. The delegation was denied permission to meet the PM and was asked to instead speak with the Finance Minister. The Kerala CM, thus slighted remarked that the state was neglected by the centre. “Democratic courteousness should not be anticipated from the Central government which is following the Nazi-Fascist ideologies,” he added.

No light at the end of the dark tunnel

Many small and medium scale economies are hit, probably never to recover, entertainment industry along with every other industry are facing the effects, the lay-offs continue and daily wage earners are having no work, which means no food for their families. Can they really endure 50 days of this hardship as Modi asked them to? They are the most vulnerable of sections and the situation is predicted by experts to worsen.

Can anyone see light at the end of this dark tunnel?

-UDAAN