No Need To Be Defensive, PM Modi Tells Party..People With Us On Notes Ban
NEW DELHI : With a section of Opposition parties looking at ways to corner the government over the sudden decision to scrap Rs 500/1000 notes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Monday, gave clear indications that he will not buckle under any pressure in his fight against black money and corruption.
At a meeting of BJP parliamentary party, PM Modi said the country has welcomed demonetisation and firmly ruled out a rollback.
The PM told the party and government should not buckle under Opposition pressure and go ahead full throttle.
Opposition trying to sabotage the move, the PM added.BJP president Amit Shah, ministers Rajnath Singh and Arun Jaitley and BJP patriarch LK Advani were among those who attended the meeting held at the Parliament.
The Prime Minister said that BJP should not be defensive about the decision in the Parliament when it reconvenes for the winter session on Wednesday.Later a meeting of NDA parties was chaired by the Prime Minister to take feedback on the fallout of the sudden demonetisation move.All NDA parties unanimously supported the Prime Minister and lauded the bold step taken by him.
Briefing the media after the meeting, union minister Ananth Kumar said, “All partners of NDA, in one voice, welcomed the decision taken by Prime Minister Modi to weed out black money, fake money and corruption from the country.
“There was a discussion on taking initiative taken by the government to its logical conclusion; government to address the nation on this issue through Parliament,” Kumar said.His cabinet colleague Venkaiah Naidu said, “Mood of the nation is in favour of Modi government; everyone agreed that it is a historic decision; temporary pain for larger gain.”
Senior leaders of the Congress, TMC, RJD, JD(U), CPI, CPI(M) and some other opposition parties were part of the meeting.The meeting comes amid West Bengal Chief Minister’s hectic efforts to unite the Opposition against the government over the demonetisation move.
After the respective meetings of NDA and the Opposition, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan convened an all-party meeting to discuss the agenda before the Parliament in the Winter Session.
Parliament begins its winter session on Wednesday; the opening will likely be taken over by opposition leaders like Mamata Banerjee accusing the government of punishing poor people with the decision to remove old high-denomination notes from circulation.
The government has countered that the ban had to be sudden in order to be effective. Since the old notes were declared invalid, nearly 45 billion dollars have been deposited in banks as people turn in old notes for new ones.
Relaxing earlier restrictions, a bank customer can now withdraw Rs. 24,000 in a week, and a daily limit of Rs. 10,000 has been cancelled. The limit for swapping old notes for new currency has been raised to Rs. 4,500 from Rs. 4,000; at ATMs, the limit on per day per card withdrawal has moved to Rs. 2,500 instead of Rs. 2,000. The government has stressed that these caps will be removed quickly.
