Congress members beat plates along with sloganeering against the demonetisation step of the Union Government before rallying to the collectorate where they submitted a memorandum addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Thali Bajao protest programme was also held in other district headquarters of the state on Monday.
Acting on the directions of the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee, members of the Mahila Congress along with members of district and Mahanagar unit of the party in the provisional state capital Dehradun protested against demonetisation by taking out a protest march from Gandhi Park to the district magistrate's office with much sloganeering and beating of metal plates. The protesting Congress members submitted a memorandum to the district magistrate, addressed to the prime minister of India. In the memorandum addressed to the president, the Congress members have alleged major corruption in the demonetisation step taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central Government. Further accusing the BJP-led Central Government of “accepting black money from the Sahara group and the Birla industrialists, and orchestrating corruption”, the Congress memorandum alleged that the union government under prime minister Narendra Modi had accepted money from influential concerns and “converted their black money into white”. The Congress party further stated that on October 15, 2013, the income tax officials had conducted a raid on the premises of the Aditya Birla group in Delhi during which Rs 25 crore cash had also been recovered. The laptop computer seized from the industrial group’s vice president has revealed various objectionable evidences, alleged the party members. Claiming to have provided various “proofs” of corruption in the memorandum addressed to the president, the Congress members demanded that investigation should be conducted into these cases of alleged corruption. The PCC vice president Jot Singh Bisht, Rajendra Shah, various position holders of the party along with party members were among those who participated in the protest rally from Gandhi Park to the district collectorate in Dehradun.
In Nainital, the Mahila Congress state president and local MlA Sarita Arya led Congress workers in the protest against the Central Government’s demonetisation step.
Women participating in the protest demonstration beat plates and other utensils during the gathering at Gandhi Chowk in Tallital locality. Addressing the protest gathering, Arya alleged that more than 50 days after the demonetisation step had been taken, the situation being faced by the general public has remained as it was. “Prime minister Narendra Modi had said that they would bring back black money in 50 days. The said black money did not appear but the people did undergo considerable inconvenience. The labour class has been most affected by this decision. After the demonetisation, in the SIIDCUl industrial estate alone, about 16,000 workers had been left in a lurch,” she alleged.