Criticising the Modi Government for taking the Ordinance route to impose penalty including jail term for possessing scrapped notes, CPI(M) on Wednesday said it employed the “backdoor method” as it was afraid of facing Parliament. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, however, trashed the demand by some Opposition parties led by Congress and TMC that Prime Minister Narendra Modi resign over demonetisation and, instead, pitched for directing efforts to see that problems faced by people end soon.
Asked about fissures within Opposition after left parties did not take part in the meet and the Press conference addressed by Rahul Gandhi along with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and other Opposition leaders yesterday, Yechury insisted that “unity continues to be there”.
“It was inevitable for the Government to bring the ordinance or else demonetisation move would not be legal...In actual practice, they should have amended the law concerned when Parliament was in session (to validate the December 30 deadline),” Yechury told reporters.
“There is no need for taking Ordinance route. But, afraid of law like this facing Parliament during winter session, the backdoor method has been employed by the Modi Government,” he added.
On Opposition unity over the note ban issue, he said, “Unity was there and will continue to be there.
“But the question is how we strengthen that unityIJ There should be consultations and that we reach common decisions.”