Note ban, century’s biggest scam: Congress

Warangal: Large scale protests were staged across erstwhile Warangal district by Opposition parties against the NDA government’s note ban move on its first anniversary. The leaders of Congress and CPI organised separate protests in Warangal, Jangaon, Bhupalpally and Mahabubabad on Wednesday, expressing their ire against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who announced the decision through a special broadcast on November 8 last year.

In response to the AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s call to observe November 8 as ‘Black Day’, the party leaders and workers took out protest rallies and staged dharnas. The district Congress president N Rajender Reddy, city Congress leaders Rajanala Srihari, K Srinivas Rao, Narsampet MLA D Madhava Reddy, ex-MLAs K Sridhar, Vem Narender Reddy and Seetakka, ex-mayor Errabelli Swarna and others took part in a massive rally in Hanamkonda.

Addressing the gathering, Rajender Reddy described demonetisation by Modi government as the biggest financial scam of the century that thrown country’s economy into an irrevocable crisis. Modi was acting like Tughlaq has made people fools to serve his selfish desires, he stated. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other economists found fault with the demonetistion move and called it a ‘organised loot and legalised plunder’. The financial transactions and business in the country were stalled for months and the nation was yet to recover from the loss.

Rajender Reddy demanded the PM Modi to tender apology for his faulty decision. Poor and middle-class citizens were forced to stand in queues for days together as wealthy and those close to ruling BJP safely exchanged black money into white. As the nation was still suffering from the side effects of demonetisation, the BJP government has dealt a deadly blow on small and medium enterprises in the name of GST regime, alleged Srihari.

Stating that the demonetisation helped only a select top 50 businessmen in the country, Congress leaders said all the estimations on bringing out black money went wrong. There was no concurrence in the figures what the Centre and RBI projected regarding black money. The volume of currency either exchanged or deposited in the banks has proved it, the leaders noted.

CPI state secretary Ch Venkat Reddy appealed public and different political parties to join hands to fight against the PM Modi’s anti-people policies. He demanded the PM Modi to apologise to the public on his demonetisation move, addressing the party workers at Ambedkar Statue, where a dharna was staged. The decision to introduce Rs 2000 currency by withdrawing Rs 1000 meant to help the rich, he alleged. The GST regime has been affecting the nations’ growth, he complained.

Meanwhile, in a novel protest the city Congress leader Srihari has performed a mock funeral of PM Narendra Modi at Chinna Waddepally tank in the city. The mock funeral was conducted to underscore the plight of crores of common people suffered due to demonetisation, he said.