BJP pitches Jaitley for outreach on demonetisation

Concerned at a “sustained campaign” by political rivals to discredit the demonetisation of ~500 and ~1,000 notes, the Narendra Modi government and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have launched a multi-pronged outreach.

The campaign is spearheaded by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and party chief Amit Shah is the chief strategist. The government has decided not to rely for this outreach on the government machinery, but on BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres on the ground and on social media.

Added to this is BJP’s sharply defined political onslaught, founded on the binary of nationalists versus anti-nationals, on its rivals for criticising the scheme. On Friday, Shah asked those slamming the move — the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party — why they were batting for anti-national elements whom the move had hurt — terrorists, drug smugglers, hawala operators and Maoists. According to sources, Shah has personally listed 80 news television channels, including English and regional language channels, to which Jaitley will give interviews in the days to come. The BJP has already issued orders to put up over 1,000 informative hoardings, with the PM’s photograph, about demonetisation and its benefits. These will initially come up in bigger urban centres. The government will also issue advertisements to hundreds of newspapers on Saturday.

Sources in the Press Information Bureau, the Union government’s department responsible for spreading the message of government programmes and policies, admitted that the secrecy around the PM’s announcement had also meant that no plan was in place to reach out to the public. This has led to a lack of ownership among government departments to propagate the move.

The BJP president has stepped forward to plug this gap. BJP and RSS cadres across the country, particularly in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, have been asked to convince people that they should help in making Modi government’s decision a success in national interest.

On Friday, Shah also made it evident the Modi government’s “surgical strike” on ‘black money’ will be his party’s poll plank in the forthcoming Assembly polls in five states. He claimed that as many as 20 million people were issued new notes on Thursday. “But some political parties have become poorer. The criticism of the scheme by these political leaders has betrayed their frustration,” Shah said. The BJP chief also dismissed allegations that the information had been leaked beforehand to insiders.