The Modi government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are biding their time until December 31, the scheduled end of the demonetisation exercise, after which the PM is likely to unveil sops for the poor. In the interregnum, the BJP plans to counter the Opposition propaganda by attacking the Congress-led UPA for its multitude of scams. On Tuesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said high-denomination notes, as percentage of total currency in circulation, increased from a mere 36 per cent to over 80 per cent during UPA regime, that is from 2004 to 2014. Jaitley’s was a reference to alleged ill-gotten money from the scams being hoarded in high denomination currency notes. The Opposition, comprising 17 political parties with the Congress in the lead, will have a meeting at the end of the winter session to strategise a common theme for their protests across the country until December 31. The protests and awareness campaigns against ‘note ban’ will focus on three issues — job losses in the informal sector, how ‘note ban’ is a “grand scam” to benefit select industrialists and allegations that BJP state units had advance information, which helped them convert their unaccounted money into ‘white’ money.
Some of the opposition parties, particularly the Trinamool, are aware of the Achilles’ Heel of the Congress on corruption, and have insisted that a united Opposition should instead shift the discourse to the human suffering because of ‘note ban’.
In a show of unity, Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Ajit Singh will hold a public rally in Muzaffarnagar on December 22 and has invited several leaders of other opposition parties, including the Trinamool and Nationalist Congress Party.
According to Congress and Trinamool leaders, the unity among 17 opposition parties needs to be taken to the streets. “As the principal opposition party, the Congress already demonstrated that leadership role in Parliament. We will initiate groundwork for joint nationwide protests against demonetisation outside Parliament,” Congress veteran Satyavrat Chaturvedi said. Coordination with regional players in the states has been left to the respective state Congress units.
