BJP and its friends informed about demonetisation a week before: CM

Reacting sharply to the Centre’s move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday maintained that it won’t check corruption or black money.

He further asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should make public the names of 648 Indians having ‘Swiss’ bank accounts whose details he said had been given to New Delhi during the earlier UPA regime.

Launching a scathing attack on the Prime Minister,  the Aam Aadmi Party  (AAP) supremo, in a video message, said the problem of black money and corruption would not go away by Modi’s surprise decision to scrap these higher denominations currency notes. It could be only diminished if the Prime Minister would order the arrest of these 648 people by Thursday evening, he claimed adding: “But you won’t arrest them because they are your friends.”

In the process, he said, there was chaos all around the country as people were mobbing banks to exchange or deposit their old currency.

“Do you find black marketers in the queues? Or rich people? Those in the queues are traders, rickshaw pullers, autorickshaw drivers, farmers, workers. Are these the people with black money?” Kejriwal said the introduction of Rs 2,000 notes would only make life convenient to both bribe givers and takers. “Those who earlier took 100 notes of Rs 1,000 notes will now carry only 50 notes of 2,000 value.”

The AAP leader alleged that BJP’s “friends” knew about the development in advance and had managed to send their money abroad or bought land or gold with the previous currency.

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party had also made “arrangements” in view of the coming Uttar Pradesh elections. “The sufferers are the ordinary people.”

Kejriwal pointed out that the spiking had led to “black marketing” of the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, with the former getting exchanged for Rs 400 and the latter for Rs 800 in black market due to people’s desperation.

“If the Prime Minister had totally abolished Rs 500 and 1,000 notes, we would have supported the step.”

“Utterly shameful. Do people want their PM to model for private companies? Tomorrow, if these companies do wrongdoings, who will act against them?” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal asked in a tweet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photo was being used by private online payment firm Paytm, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Thursday.

“Paytm biggest beneficiary of PM’s (Modi’s) announcement (demonetisation of big currency). Next day PM appears in its ads. What’s the deal, Mr PM?” Kejriwal asked.