A day after Nitish Kumar questioned the benefits of the much-hyped demonetisation move to the common people and slammed banks that allegedly helped the rich and powerful to manage their cash following the central government's November 8, 2016 move, Tejashwi Yadav, the Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, said: "Our beloved Nitish Chacha took another sharp U-turn."
Tejashwi Yadav, the former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister tweeted: "He (Nitish Kumar) supported demonetisation but is now questioning it. He is always years behind in understanding the issues, difficulties and demands of common people. Don't be surprised if he calls demonetisation the biggest scam of India."
Nitish Kumar on Saturday surprised not only his ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders here but his own party leaders when he questioned the benefits of demonetisation.
"I was supporter of demonetisation... but how many people benefited from it? Some powerful people shifted their cash from one place to another," the Bihar Chief Minister said at a meeting with bank officials here.
It is for the first time that Nitish Kumar, who is also the president of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) -- a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ally -- has questioned the demonetisation move of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
Incidentally, Nitish Kumar's utterances against the December 2016 demonetisation move came on a day when the BJP was celebrating completion of four years of the Modi government at the Centre.
After the Chief Minister expressed his reservations about the benefits of demonetisation, senior BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who was also present, downplayed his statement, saying: "Nitish Kumar has been a supporter of demonetisation."
In 2016, Kumar, then part of the Grand Alliance of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, had supported demonetisation, while RJD chief Lalu Prasad had opposed the move.
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