A hard-hitting Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday poured down her demonetisation gripe on Reserve bank of India Governor Urjit Patel in a one-on-one meeting with him at the State secretariat Nabanna.
later speaking to the media Banerjee said she had communicated to Patel her Government’s concerns regarding demonetisation and also raised the issue of discrimination in distribution of currency notes among BJP and non-BJP ruled States.
Banerjee who also wrote a letter to Patel describing her agony said, “I told him how the entire unorganised sector and small industries have been thrown into disarray after demonetisation. There is a gloom in agriculture and industry. I told him how badly the notebandi has affected the tea workers. The retail market has collapsed and the people have gone jobless.”
The RBI Governor was in Kolkata to attend the RBI’s Central board meeting on Thursday.
The Chief Minister was more vocal about the “political discrimination” among States in terms of distributing new currency notes.
Expressing her “serious concern” she wrote in her letter that “we would like to know from you the nature of allocation of new currency notes to each of the States in a spirit of transparency and accountability, since there are serious concerns of political discrimination among States.”
later Banerjee told the media that she had asked the Governor to get the details of currency distribution published in the website. “Or how is it that States like Assam are getting higher number of notes than Bengal.”
The Chief Minister also mentioned in her letter that already five crore people had lost their jobs and the people were standing on the verge of unemployment and hunger. “The unorganised sector which provides almost two-thirds of the coutnry’s jobs has literally collapsed on account of demonetisation,” she said.
When asked as to whether there was a reply from Patel Banerjee said “he is a Government officer and cannot be expected to be vocal on certain things. In any case he naturally had no plausible reply to my questions because I was talking on the basis of evidence I had placed before him. I spoke on the basis of facts and not fiction.”
She reportedly told the Governor that he was expected to “stand up against the demonetisation onslaught against the common people rather than falling silent and remaining opaque.” Patel’s silence said it all, Banerjee said.
Raising the issue of an interview given by S Gurumurthy the Chief Minister said “the people are more confused because they are not listening anything from the officials but the RSS people like Grumurthy. The people like to hear from the Government about its future plans on demonetisation.”
Calling the GST reform and the demonetisation a “double dhamaka” Banerjee said “the introduction of GST did not mean anything for us in the wake of demonetisation.”
The TMC had lined up a series of protest movements against demonetisation during Patel’s visit to Kolkata. The left Front also staged a similar rally on Thursday.