Congress to mark noteban anniversary with protests

The Congress has planned a nationwide protest on Friday to mark the second anniversary of demonetisation and demand an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the “Tughlaqi farman” (thoughtless decision) that “wiped out the small businesses.”

The Congress has asked its state units to hold protest demonstrations at every district headquarters across the country against the “complete failure of demonetisation”.

“The Congress would like to demand that on November 8, 2018, exactly at that point in time when the prime minister two years ago had issued this Tughlaqi farmaan, he must stand up and apologise to the people of this country for ruining and wrecking the Indian economy,” senior Congress leader Manish Tewari said.

In a letter to state units of the party, AICC General Secretary Ashok Gehlot said it was clear that the entire exercise of demonetisation was done to convert the ill-gotten black money of the BJP and its friends into white.

Earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of India admitted that as much as 99.3% of the scrapped currency had returned to the banking system, prompting the opposition to dub the demonetisation initiative as a “money-laundering” scam.

Gehlot said it was time to seek answers from Modi on the real beneficiaries of demonetisation.

"Jawab Do Modi ji" is the slogan finalised by the Congress for the protest demonstrations on Friday planned at every district headquarters between 11 am and 1 pm.

The three reasons given for demonetisation were that it would curb black money, weed out fake notes and proscribe terror financing, but two years later none of those objectives have materialised, Tewari said.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi would be campaigning in Chhatisgarh for the assembly elections. Congress sources said that Rahul may join the protests.