Is “Akrosh” of political parties justified?

Opposition parties have given a call for Bharat Band on Nov 28 to protest Demonetization Drive. Denouncing the move as anti-poor and anti-people, united opposition will observe Nov 28^th as “Akrosh Din”.

Ever since the announcement of demonetization drive by Prime Minister on Nov 8^th the irked opposition party have slowly but steadily escalated war against the audacious move. Political parties initially refrained from making bold statements condemning demonetization, fearing public wrath. But the initial whimper of political parties and objections towards the massive economic reform slowly gathered dust. All parties made precarious comments and deliberately vacillated before hardening their stance. But by around Nov 12^th, Mamata Banerjee hit the streets of Kolkata protesting demonetization drive giving the much-needed momentum and initiative to the opposition to gain ground and launch a tirade. Without losing anytime Arvind Kejriwal joined the bandwagon who besides making scathing remarks on Prime Minister, disseminated the theory of selective leaks to friends of Modi. Together Banerjee and Kejriwal addressed public in Delhi. To garner support against demonetization drive, Kejriwal addressed gatherings at Laxminagar and Azadpur vegetable market. He was hooted out and angry traders tore his posters. Kejriwal earlier convened Delhi assembly and moved a resolution against Prime Minister’s decision.

In the meanwhile, Banerjee has toughened her position and reached out to all the political parties. The unrelenting Banerjee even reached out to BJP ally Shiv Sena to join her march from Parliament to Rashtrapati Bhavan. On the opening day of Winter Session of Parliament, Banerjee carried out a protest march with MPs from TMC, AAP, Shiv Sena and NC. With Rahul Gandhi miserably failing to catapult himself as a parallel to Modi, Banerjee with her aggressiveness, positioned herself as formidable rival to Modi. Having won the assembly elections convincingly in 2011 and 2016, Banerjee is making every bid to elevate herself as an opponent of Modi for the General Elections of 2019. With unrivaled blitzkrieg, she launched an offensive against demonetization by donning the image of crusader of poor and called for rollback of the measure. As elections are nearing, politicians are out competing each other to politically establish themselves as aggressive leaders. Now CPI (M) leader served a notice for moving contempt motion against Prime Minister.

The announcement to observe Akrosh Diwas, comes on a day when an overwhelming majority have strongly supported the demonetization drive of the Modi. While opposition has expressed disdain towards the verdict delivered on the Modi app calling it hoax. Similar pattern of acceptance was recorded in the poll surveys conducted by several independent media groups. Poll surveys indicated that public was very happy with demonetization drive, but were perturbed by the implementation. Unarguably, people are inconvenienced by deficiencies in implementation. But by and large, Indian public are welcoming the move. Indian Public openly endorsed the audacious move of the Centre that can throttle the conduits of parallel economy. In the past seven decades, politicians of all hues made loud proclamations to decimate corruption. But the conviction and the commitment was missing. The spirited response of public in the wake of inconveniences can be traced back to the optimism that finally somebody had displayed the nerve to take the bull of corruption by horns. Ironically, all these leaders who portrayed themselves as messiahs of anti-corruption drive are now launching venomous attacks on the Centre.

The decade long UPA governance riddled with numerous scams frustrated the public and AAP by advocating zero tolerance towards corruption rode to power. But now the very leaders are seriously contesting and denouncing the attempts of Centre. With this double-speak, politicians scaled the pinnacles of duplicity. Irony died a thousand deaths, yesterday, when Manmohan Singh, who rarely speaks, severely criticized demonetization calling it as “organized loot and legalized plunder”. Desperate Congress, having the lost vital principal opposition status and struggling to gain ground unleashed the last weapon in its kitty by erecting Singh to speak at Rajya Sabha. Rattled by public support towards demonetization, Congress wanted to capitalize on the elitist reputation of Singh. But unfortunately, the popularity of Singh failed to strike right notes. Especially the panic perpetration and statement that demonetization would reduce the GDP by two percentage points appeared to be political overdrive. The predictions appear to be politically motivated since it is nowhere close to the estimates of top-notch financial surveys. Care Ratings predicted 0.5-0.3 percent fall, Goldman Sach’s 1.1 percent, Emkay Global 0.9 and ICICI Securities by 0.4 percent. Congress with a history of unfathomable plunder falls short of moral credibility to question the demonetization drive.

Unarguably, demonetization has inconvenienced the common man who was forced to stand in never ending lines at the ATMs and banks to withdraw their hard-earned money. Centre can’t  be completely exonerated of all the lapses in implementation which badly hit the lives of common man. But the public are enthusiastically supporting Modi despite hardships for walking the talk. While this move can upset BJP as it risks losing support of key support base-small traders, but still Modi launched the drive to fight against black money and corruption. After two weeks of monetization, Urban and semi-urban areas are slowly limping back to normalcy and financial transactions have slowly improving. But the rural areas with poor access to banks are still enduring the financial stress. Government will be committing a grave mistake if it fails to push the banking sector to extend its services to reach out to the last man.

The angst exuded by opposition combine in demonizing the intentions of government will back fire. Especially the opposition castigating demonetization as anti-poor might have any takers since the move was welcomed by middle class, honest tax payers who are exulting the new status of being rewarded.

Through irksome political bickering and stinging criticism, political parties have vented out frustration. In the process, they miserably failed to buttress people’s support towards their fight against demonetization. The irresponsible comments of BSP chief Mayawati where she dared Modi saying “I want to tell Prime Minister Narendra Modi that if you really are an honest man and want correct survey and if have guts, then dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections” clearly reflects the political uneasiness.  Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackery’s speaking to the reporters said, “the demand for Brexit like referendum is okay but what if the referendum goes against demonetization move? Will the PM too follow the steps of the British PM and step down?” This kind of remarks by seasoned politicians raise serious doubts about their intentions. If these politicians are really concerned about the common man, instead of protesting in front to Parliament would indulge in fruitful debates with government, would pull it up for lapses and suggest concrete policy to stem the rot of corruption. By protesting before Parliament and bringing the work to grinding halt they lost the plot.

Opposition argued that post demonetization markets has accrued several losses and that this will have a deleterious effect on the economy. Intellectuals and Economists allayed fears and clarified that subdued financial progress might prevail for the next two quarters following which the economy would pick up pace.

While a detailed insight into dubious reputations of the combined opposition and some leaders in ruling party might put them and nation to shame, the anti-poor stance donned by them reeks of hypocrisy. At a time when escalations of cease fire violations have increased manifold and geopolitical alliances are topsy-turvy, the opposition together with leaders of ruling party must strive to strengthen the country from within. Instead the political front is deeply engrossed in lapping up opportunities to draw political mileage. Demonetization drive would also not only pave way for a serious discussion on state funded elections but turn the dream of digital economy into reality.

By and large irrespective of the political allegiances, leaders are solely interested in drawing maximum mileage. Interestingly, common man is watching the outrage of political leaders more keenly, as they believe that stronger the protest, deeper are the vaults stocked with black money and hence stronger is the financial jolt suffered by them. Notes winning votes in India is a common practice and thus politicians whose treasury chests are rendered useless by demonetization are bound to use every dirty trick in political game to clinch power.

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