Demonetisation: Congress backs as Azad seeks BJP apology; Kerala CM protests outside RBI

New Delhi: It's more than 10 days since the central government has announced demonetisation of Rs500 and Rs1000 banknotes on 8 November 2016, but still serpentine queues can be seen outside banks and ATMs.   

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad demanded an apology from the Bharatiya Janata Party for deaths of people standing in queues outside banks and ATM kiosks after the November 8 demonetisation of high-denomination currency notes. Reiterating his stand against demonetisation, Azad told the media at Parliament House here on Friday "The BJP should apologise to the 125 crore citizens of India." Azad, a former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and a former Union minister, triggered a furore among the treasury benches in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday when he likened the deaths of people outside banks and ATMs to the deaths of 20 soldiers in the September 18 terror attack at an army base camp in Uri in his home state. The remark was later expunged by the house. The Congress, meanwhile, stood by Azad and said there is no question of defending him when he is right. "There is no question of defending something that is absolutely correct. Azad Sahab said that 20 of our soldiers laid down their lives in Uri attack defending the country and we are proud of them," said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala. "But one autocratic decision of a dictatorial Prime Minister has killed 55 innocent people. Who is responsible for it? They died because of the economic anarchy heaped upon them by the Prime Minister. This is the comparison that Ghulam Nabiji brought about," he added. Suurjewala said: "Azad Sahab was right in saying 'If a Hindu questions the government, then he is anti-national and if a Muslim questions, then he is a Pakistani'." Meanwhile, slamming the opposition parties for continued disruptions in Parliament over demonetisation, the government said the Congress is avoiding a debate in the house to save itself from getting exposed over its opposition to cleansing of the system. "We cannot make out why the opposition, especially the Congress and its friends, are creating an uproar in Parliament," Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu told the media outside Parliament here. "While they are posturing in public, they don't want to debate in the house. They just want to prevent themselves from being exposed over their objection to the cleaning of the system," he said after the Rajya Sabha witnessed several adjournments during the day. The senior BJP leader said the opposition was trying to divert public attention from the issue. Kerala CM, ministers protest outside RBI over demonetisation: In an unprecedented action, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan led a daylong protest outside the RBI office here along with 17 Cabinet ministers and CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury. At the end of the protest, they held a special cabinet meeting and decided to convene a special one-day assembly session on Tuesday to discuss the issue. Vijayan and senior leaders from the ruling Left Democratic Front walked from the Martyr's Column and reached the Reserve Bank of India office to denounce the Narendra Modi government's decision to what they said was "sideline the cooperative banks" following the demonetisation on November 8. The Congress-led United Democratic Front leaders, who met Vijayan on Thursday, had requested for the special assembly session to discuss the grave issue. The state government views the central government's move as an "injustice" that would wreck the very existence of cooperative banks in Kerala, said Vijayan. He said the cooperative banking sector was the "livewire" of the rural economy in Kerala as it functions well within the rules but does not have the frills of commercial banks. The CPI-M leader said the cooperative bank was a friend of the common man as it extends credit to him without any fuss. "The deposit base in these cooperative banks is in excess of Rs 1 lakh crore and this banking system rises to the occasion to address the need of our ordinary people," the Chief Minister said. Referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party, he said some people claimed that these banks were flush with black money. "The people standing in front of me... does anyone of you have black money deposited in these banks?" Vijayan asked the crowd. The Reserve Bank of India has withdrawn the facility given to the cooperative banks the right to accept or exchange the spiked 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. The cooperative banking sector in Kerala is a three-tier system, with about 1,600 primary cooperative banks attached to the 14 district banks, which are further linked to the apex Kerala State Cooperative Bank (KSCB). Vijayan said he and his Finance Minister Thomas Issac explained the situation to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who "we felt that understood what we said". "But as soon as this happened, the state BJP spread canards that these banks were flush with black money and after that came the decision of the RBI withdrawing the facility that was given to these banks," he said. "This is nothing but a big rooted political conspiracy," said Vijayan. Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy welcomed the protest of the Kerala government. "We will support any move that comes to protect the cooperative banks and we are with them on this issue," he said. The BJP says that these primary societies do not follow RBI guidelines while accepting deposits. Yechury said: "We will have to take this protest forward to the rest of the country to end the anarchic policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi." Former Chief Minister V.S.Achuthanandan termed Modi's decision to ignore the cooperative sector as one that will wreck the state economy.