Viral Sach: Did BJP deposit Rs 3 crore in West Bengal bank just before demonetisation announcement?

NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal has alleged that the BJP’s “friends” knew about the demonetisation in advance. However, BJP President Amit Shah refuted such allegations, saying the information was limited to some constitutional and administrative entities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also maintained that it was a secret operation. "It was a secret operation I started 10 months back and had formed a small team. We had to print new currency notes and take other steps in secret otherwise the corrupt would have found other ways to deal with the situation," PM Modi said. Amid spar between the BJP and the opposition parties over demonetisation, an image of a Bank transaction is going viral on the social media with a claim that Rs 1 crore -in two installments of Rs 60 lakh and Rs 40 lakh- was deposited in the West Bengal BJP unit's account on November 8. The image has the account number (554510034) of the BJP at the CR Avenue branch of Indian Bank. It is claimed the deposits were made hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the demonetisation announcement. Questions are now being raised if the BJP's West Bengal unit already had the information of PM Modi's demonetisation and deposited Rs 1 crore in its account? In the viral message it is claimed that total amount of Rs 3 crore was deposited in the account. ABP News, while investigating the matter, found that this news was first published CPM's Bengal mouthpiece, Ganashakti, on Nov 11. The newspapaer accused the BJP of having prior knowledge of the demonetisation and asked it to reveal the source of the money it deposited in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in a Calcutta bank account on November 8. The BJP denied the allegation of having prior information of the decision, acknowledged the deposit and said it had donation receipts and other documents to prove that the cash was not black money. "The claim that our state unit had prior information about the demonetisation move is baseless. We followed every rule and regulation while depositing the amount," Savar Dharania, BJP leader, said. Bengal BJP vice-president Jaiprakash Majumdar said the deposits were made, but the dates were just a coincidence. "Please tell us what difference would it have made had we deposited the money after November 8. We put the money in a nationalised bank account and provided our PAN. All of it is accounted for," he said. Majumdar said the party had all the receipts and other documents and was ready to face any probe.