Demonetization: Maharashtra Congress to launch statewide stir from January, says Ashok Chavan

Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Ashok Chavan on Wednesday said the party will launch a state wide stir from first week of January to protest against demonetization since the hardships of the common man continued even after the end of the 50-day window.

Chavan was addressing party workers at a function here to mark the 132nd foundation day of the Congress.

"Fifty days have passed since demonetization and despite assurance from Prime Minister Narendra Modi that people's hardships will ease, the ground reality is different," Chavan said.

Attacking the Prime Minister, Chavan charged he should answer the questions posed by party Vice President Rahul Gandhi regarding allegations of bribery.

Escalating his attack on Modi over note ban in the last couple of days, Rahul had said that demonetisation was not a surgical strike on corruption and black money as projected by the Prime Minister and his ministers but was an "economic robbery" and "firebombing on India's poor".

Rahul says the Prime Minister has put "99 per cent people" in the country to hardships and not targeted the "1 per cent super rich" who "held all the black money".

According to him, five per cent of every online transactions in a cashless economy will go to "those 50 families".

The Congress VP has also been reiterating his charge of "crores of rupees" allegedly being paid to Modi by big business houses on different occasions when he was Gujarat Chief Minister and has sought the PM's reply to the charges.