There are two clear lines of thought among the public on the government’s decision to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with an aim to get rid of black money and counterfeit currency. One, it is a bold, fantastic move by the Narendra Modi government. Two, there should have been a back-up plan before implementing such a huge and ambitious overhaul of the financial system.
These views capture the essence of what is now turning into a fight between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is leading the defence of the demonetisation decision, and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has emerged as the face of the Opposition on this matter. Both are trying to address the same constituency. For Modi, it is the teeming millions whom he claims to have liberated from black money and fake cash. For Trinamool Congress chief Banerjee, it is the poor, the marginalised and the much distressed common man who she says is bearing the brunt of the cash withdrawal.
The delicate balance in this power play is likely to be decided by the flow of cash to banks. If it is adequate and fills up the void created by the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes – which by the government’s own admission makes up 86% of the cash in circulation – in the next few days, people may no longer remember the hardships of the past week and may actually hail Modi’s bold step. But should the money flow falter, Banerjee would be applauded for taking the fight to the streets of Delhi and marching to the President to complain against the economic chaos unleashed by the demonetisation move. As far as her politics of populism goes, this is a win-win situation for the chief minister. Knowing this, she has been addressing a large audience of those who are suffering as a result of the currency crisis.
Ongoing war
For Mamata Banerjee, this is not a one-off fight with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre. Her call to the Opposition to unite against demonetisation and her emergence on the national stage after a long period of time have serious political implications.
In the past two months, Banerjee has picked up no less than a dozen subjects on which she has clashed with the Centre. Earlier this month, it was the suicide of an ex-serviceman over implementation of One Rank One Pension. She also condemned the detention of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the Capital when they tried to meet the deceased’s family. Around the same time, she questioned the encounter killing of eight Students Islamic Movement of India undertrials in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP is in power. Other subjects on which she has gone up against the Centre include the alleged unilateral changes in the fund allocation procedure for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, and the non-allotment of a plot in Delhi to the Trinamool Congress despite it being an all-India party.
On the subject of triple talaq, which the Centre has opposed in the Supreme Court, the Trinamool Congress government has sent a signal to the Modi government by allowing the All India Muslim Personal Law Board to hold a public rally in Kolkata on November 20 and a two-day conference prior to that. The board is fighting the Centre is court on the issue.
The Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, headed by Siddiqullah Chowdhury, a minister in Banerjee’s cabinet, is backing the event. Party Secretary General Partha Chatterjee has also pledged support to the Muslim law board’s demand for non-interference on the triple talaq matter, while adding that the agitation against the Modi government will go beyond West Bengal. This has been seen as a move by Banerjee to woo Muslims across India, which may enhance her image as a national leader.
Finally, Mamata Banerjee’s recalibration of her equation with the Central government has much to do with the elections in Uttar Pradesh early next year and the Lok Sabha polls in 2019. A win for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh will turn the heat on West Bengal, where the saffron brigade is working hard to create a base. According to the BJP’s internal assessment, it is looking to win 20-plus parliamentary seats in Bengal.
For its criticism of the Centre, the Trinamool Congress leadership is expecting a fresh impetus to the investigation into the Saradha chit fund scam that wiped out the savings of millions of poor people in Bengal. A day after Banerjee brought up the NDA government’s demonetisation move, the party’s Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandopadhyay got a notice from the Central Bureau of Investigation seeking his appearance in the Saradha investigation. A few days earlier, another MP, Shatabdi Roy, had received a similar call from the agency.
Elusive consensus
The West Bengal chief minister has also made several attempts to bring non-BJP state governments under one platform to fight central intervention in state matters.
On demonetisation, the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have been cool to her calls for unity. But this has more to do with Banerjee’s politics at home in West Bengal, where the Trinamool Congress is on a mission to wipe out both parties. Murshidabad and Malda, two districts dominated by the Congress, buckled during civic body polls in August-September and are on the verge of falling to the ruling party. The Communists, who ruled the state for 34 years before Banerjee broke their stranglehold, are is a state of fast decay. Both parties have domestic compulsions not to respond to her call.
Other political parties have also rejected her call to unite. Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, all of whom she telephoned personally asking them to join her march to Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday, declined. Even trusted friend Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party backed out of the march after it was announced that the Shiv Sena, an ally of the BJP in Maharashtra, would be joining it.
Banerjee has by now realised that getting national consensus even on such an emotive issue is elusive. But she does not look to be letting up the pressure. In fact, it has been a declared policy of her second term as chief minister that she would look more and more at the national political arena. In her first five years, she was fully focused on securing her turf. Now that she is securely in the straddle, having won a massive victory in elections earlier this year, she is looking beyond West Bengal and hopes to bring a splintered Opposition together on one issue or the other.
“It was not a political fight,” she explained. “I did not want to be at the forefront. I would be happy in the background. But the injustice and the hardships meted out to the people by the Narendra Modi government can’t and should not be overlooked.”
For Banerjee, the Delhi foray may not have been particularly successful, so far, but it has not gone waste either. As she continues to criticise the government for allegedly pushing the country into an unprecedented economic crisis, her relationship with the government is certainly being rewritten for a new phase of hostility.