Note ban woes: Mamata wants President to intervene

Two months after note ban, the Modi government was on Monday still facing opposition heat with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee saying people were on the “brink of disaster” and urged President Pranab Mukherjee to intervene. 

Dubbing demonetisation as a “shameless flop show”, Banerjee asked the common people to rise in protest even as TMC activists staged dharnas in front of RBI office in Kolkata as well as CBI office besides many places in the districts of West Bengal.

Banerjee while announcing the “nationwide protests” against demonetisation from Monday claimed that the CBI was being used to victimise her party, accusing the NDA government of turning CBI into a “Conspiracy Bureau of India”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the surprise announcement on high-value note ban on November 8 last.

“I urge the President, who is the constitutional head of the country, that if some government through its arbitrary decisions takes the country to the brink of disaster, as the protector of the Constitution give protection to the people and save the people,” the Trinamool Congress chief said. “Famine has started. Indications of the beginning of the famine are coming. So save the people. If people don’t survive then nothing will happen,” she said while inaugurating the ‘Mati Utsav’ (Soil Festival) in Burdwan.

Asking the common people to rise in protest, Banerjee said, “there will be some hardship, but someone has to bell the cat. Trinamool Congress will do that”.

“We will take care of all the hardship that may befall us owing to our protests,” she said. Earlier in a series of tweets, she demanded the lifting of the restrictions imposed from time to time by the Centre. “Restrictions should be removed. Hardships being faced by millions due to #DeMonetisation”, she said.

“Trinamool Congress is organising nationwide protest against Modi babu’s shameless flop-show #NoteBandi,” she wrote in another tweet. Banerjee said protest dharna is being held for three days from Monday in Bengal, Bhubaneswar, Punjab, Kishanganj (Bihar), Manipur, Tripura, Assam, Jharkhand and Delhi. She claimed that her party and its leaders were being victimised for protesting against the demonetisation of high-value notes and its fallout.

“They (BJP-led Centre) have turned the CBI into a Conspiracy Bureau of India,” she said referring to the agency’s arrest of TMC MPs Sudip Bandopadhyay and Tapas Pal in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam.

“We don’t care about that. If he can, Modi babu may put all of us in jail, but we will not stop talking for the people,” she added.