Cong lays siege to RBI offices

DEMONETISATION PROTEST

KEEN TO keep the demonetisation issue alive, the Congress on Wednesday laid a siege to 25 RBI offices across the country. Claiming that RBI Governor Urjit Patel permitted the government to reduce the central bank to become its mouthpiece, the party said he should resign if he cannot restore RBI’S autonomy.

Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pushed the country into a state of “economic anarchy”. He said the government will have to take full responsibility for the ill-effects of demonetisation, including deaths of more than 120 people, and damage done to the economy.

“For the first time in Independent India, RBI has been reduced to a rubber stamp. Its autonomy, like that of many other institutions, has been destroyed by the NDA government. The authority of the RBI Governor has been eroded completely,” Azad said. He demanded that the RBI and the government come out with a white paper on demonetisation, grant people their “right to withdraw their own money” and restore the RBI’S autonomy.

“Have the RBI and the Modi government calculated the cost of replacing old notes with new notes? We have been told the cost involved is to the tune of Rs 25,000-30,000 crore...who is going to bear this cost?...will the RBI and Modi government give an estimate of the loss to economy and GDP?” he asked.

In Mumbai, Congress’s Randeep Surjewala said the central bank of had virtually become a “shakha of the RSS and the BJP.”