Govt, Oppn parties battle it out on demonetisation

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.

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.

The prime minister had announced that he was demonetising Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes as a measure to fight black money, corruption, fake currency and terror funding.

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.

Modi posted a series of tweets and some short films on his Twitter handle to showcase the benefits it brought. It had, he said, formalised the economy and ensured better jobs for the poor, while cleansing the financial system.

But the opposition parties were unimpressed. The Congress and the Left parties held demonstrations across the country, while the RJD organised rallies in Bihar, and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.

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”.

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

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.

Demonetisation gave a boost to anti-corruption drive ALOK VERMA