Mamata wants Modi to step down

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement to impose demonetisation completed a month on Thursday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lashed out at him again, stating that as many as 90 people have died due to the move.

Demanding Modi’s resignation, Mamata said that none of the goals cited to launch demonetisation have been achieved. Mamata said that the “chaotic” move imposed since November 8 midnight has left the country’s economy in a  shamble and people have died standing in long queues outside banks and ATMs, but neither has a single penny of black money been recovered nor such deposits have been brought back from foreign banks.

“The prime minister must answer for these failures and take responsibility for the chaos across the country,” she said. Addressing a press conference at the state secretariat, Mamata said, “He must take responsibility for one month of people’s suffering, the loss to business, to economy… This prime minister has lost the moral right to remain in office,” she said.  Describing the last one month as the “darkest period of the economy in recent times” and “a man-made economic crisis”, she added that Modi was changing the narrative of demonetisation.

Using the term fakir (an ascetic with no worldly needs), a word the prime minister used to describe himself in recent public meetings, Mamata asked, “How did the fakir babu get so much money?”