In Kerala, Left and Congress flay demonetisation, BJP heaps praise

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 8 (IANS) Kerala's main rival political fronts, the CPI-M-led Left and Congress-led UDF, on Wednesday for a change appeared to have a common agenda when they both slammed the Modi government over demonetisation, while the state unit of the BJP was in a buoyant mood.

The two fronts did not hold a unified protest, and had organised separate protests.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated a protest meeting in front of the Reserve Bank of India state head office here.

"It's not that demonetisation has never happened, but wherever it happened it was done after proper studies. Even the former RBI Governor has now come out in the open that he had advised against it. The question then comes on whose advice was this foolish exercise undertaken. We are told that even the cabinet had no clue, then who advised this? The Prime Minister had asked for 50 days time, and now see even after a year things have gone haywire and it has caused untold miseries," said Vijayan.

The UDF in the state is observing a black day. At Kozhikode, senior Congress leaders, including former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, led the protest while in Kochi state Congress president M.M. Hassan described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a "mad man".

In the state capital the lone BJP legislator in the Kerala Assembly O. Rajagopal and other senior party leaders led a campaign where signatures were taken from people against black money and they heaped praises on the note ban on its first anniversary.