Kejriwal, however, received little support from the crowd and ended up being booed at the protest rally that was held at Azadpur Mandi in north Delhi
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal chose to skip his Gujarat trip on Thursday to join West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in lashing out against the Centre over the demonetization issue.
Kejriwal, however, received little support from the crowd and ended up being booed at the protest rally that was held at Azadpur Mandi in north Delhi. As soon as he reached the protest venue, hundreds of traders started raising slogans against him. Many of the protesters were later detained by the police. The protesters accused the Delhi CM of playing politics over the demonetization issue. “He is the most corrupt of all politicians. He is just doing politics, nothing else,” said a protester. Many of them wore black ribbons and shouted “Kejriwal hai hai... Kejriwal chor hai”.
Kejriwal has been regularly travelling to poll-bound states — Goa, Gujarat and Punjab — in a bid to expand his party base. He was to attened a rally in Ahmedabad on Thursday, but he cancelled the trip at the last minute to participate in the rally with Banerjee.
A protester said there was a lot of corruption in the Azadpur mandi but the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government did nothing to curb it. “Now when the Prime Minister has started hitting at corrupt people and black money in the country, Kejriwal and his party are supporting big traders and farmers who are holding huge amounts of black money,” he said, adding that the CM was indulging in dirty politics on all the pressing issues.
Unfazed by the backlash, both Chief Ministers attacked the government and warned of more intense protests and unrest, if the Centre did not withdraw its ban on Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes. Warning the Centre of a revolt, Kejriwal said: “Take back this decision in three days. Don’t test people’s patience. Otherwise, there will be a revolt.” He further said that demonetization was the country’s “biggest scam since 1947”.
Echoing his sentiment, Banerjee said Modi should not run the country in a manner of “dictatorship”, calling the protest rally “a fight to save the country”. She further said that such a crisis was not witnessed even during the Emergency and that the Prime Minister has broken Constitutional rules.
“Why did you (Modi) not make a proper plan before the implementation (of demonetization)? The common man is suffering. We are giving you three days. If you do not fix all the problems, we will not spare you. We are still alive,” she said.
Banerjee added that some people were talking about plastic economy just because they had travelled to a few countries. “What do they know about economy? People are dying here and they say it is a surgical strike on black money,” she said. She advised the Prime Minister to stand in a queue with people to understand their pain. She insisted that she was also against black money but that she didn’t agree with the methods adopted by the Centre.
After the Azadpur mandi rally, the two Chief Ministers visited the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to check on the progress of printing new notes and meet the RBI Governor to discuss demonetization.
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