The Kerala Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution against the Central policies that were allegedly intended at destroying the State’s cooperative sector. All parties except the BJP joined hands to pass the resolution which asked the Centre to allow the cooperative banks to exchange demonetised currency notes and accept deposits like commercial banks and to withdraw the policies that they claimed would lead to creation of anarchy in the country.
“The Government hereby assures that those who have deposited money in cooperative banks will not lose even a penny of their deposits,” Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in the Assembly which held a special sitting to discuss the crisis the cooperative sector was facing in the wake of the demonetisation of large-denomination currency notes. He said an all-party delegation would visit Delhi on Thursday to discuss the issue with the Centre.
“There is every reason to suspect that the currency demonetisation was part of a secret move to lead the country into economic slavery… This State cannot accept moves to disallow the operation of the cooperative banks in the name of black money. The efforts to destroy the cooperative sector, which had started much earlier, are part of implementing the so-called liberal economic policies,” the Chief Minister alleged.
The resolution was passed with the dissent note of O Rajagopal, the lone BJP member in the Assembly. Rajagopal wanted an amendment to the resolution but the Speaker disallowed this by agreeing with Minister Mathew T Thomas who pointed out that the notice for amendment had the nature of negative vote. The BJP member alleged that cooperative institutions in the State were being misused for converting black money into white.
Despite their differences on almost all other issues, the Congress-led Opposition UDF cooperated with the CPI(M)-led lDF Government in the Assembly on the issue concerning the cooperative sector. “The Government and the Opposition should move ahead in total cooperation on this matter,” former chief minister Oommen Chandy said in the Assembly. leaders of other UDF constituents also adopted the same line.
Presenting the subject to the Assembly, Cooperation Minister AC Moideen said, “The Centre is humiliating Kerala. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not even prepared to meet the Kerala MPs who sought his appointment over the issue. The Centre and the BJP are humiliating entire Keralites by carrying out a campaign that all the money deposited in the State’s cooperative institutions is black.”
Raising the suspicion that the Reserve Bank might have become a partner in the alleged conspiracy of the Centre against cooperative institutions of Kerala, Moideen complained that such institutions were being branded as havens for black money when they were ready to disclose all details of the deposits and depositors.
Charging the Prime Minister with efforts to implement financial fascism through the currency demonetization, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said that the move was not effective in unearthing the black money parked in foreign bank accounts and invested in real estate. “A Prime Minister shouldn’t be acting this illogically,” he said.
Addressing obviously the lone BJP member in the House, Chennithala said that the House should approach the crisis in the cooperative sector without political considerations. Former chief minister Chandy termed the currency demonetization as an act of “criminal negligence” by the Centre, adding that the same people who were claiming to be acting against black money were standing by people who would spend Rs 500 crore for a single marriage.