Trinamool approaches President against Modi’s ‘super emergency’

New Delhi, Jan 11 (IANS) Claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modis demonetisation move has brought in a "super emergency" in the country, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress on Wednesday approached President Pranab Mukherjee seeking his intervention.

At the conclusion of its three-day nationwide anti-demonetisation stir, Trinamool Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members staged a march to Rashtrapati Bhavan and apprised Mukherjee about the "acute crisis" the country was going through post Modi's November 8 move to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes.

"The Prime Minister had sought 50 days time to bring under control the situation. But far from being under control, the situation has gone from worse to worst," Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien told the media after meeting the President.

"We had initially called this (demonetisation) to be a financial emergency. But this is now a super emergency," O'Brien added.

This is the third time the Trinamool -- which has been demanding a rollback of the move -- has sought Mukherjee's intervention. Party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a delegation to Rashtrapati Bhavan on November 16 and was part of an opposition deputation that met Mukherjee on December 16.

Apprising Mukherjee about the "acute crisis", the Trinamool held Modi responsible for 120 deaths across the country, which it claimed were due to demonetisation and also accused the Centre of "vendetta politics".

"It is appalling that this government has resorted to the politics of vendetta to conceal its own incompetence and inefficiency. Anyone who has opposed demonetisation has been branded anti-national, corrupt, a supporter of terrorism or a hoarder of black money," the party said in its memorandum to Mukherjee.

"The government is blatantly misusing power and using state agencies to stifle opposition and silence critics," said the party whose two Lok Sabha members -- Tapas Paul and Sudip Bandyopadhyay -- were recently arrested by the CBI for their alleged complicity in a chit fund scam.

The party claimed that demonetisation has impoverished a vast majority of the 415 million daily wagers with around 25 crore of them having suffered loss of work which led to reverse migration.

"Through this ill-conceived and poorly implemented exercise, this government has served to deceive and ambush its own citizens. Arbitrary and irresponsible conduct of this nature has shaken the people's trust in the government irrevocably," the party said urging Mukherjee to intervene and "end the unprecedented super emergency".