Senior members of Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha have said that the Centre’s decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will prove to be detrimental for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The outfit’s general secretary, Pooja Shakun Pandey, raised doubts on the purpose of the move. “Poor people, those who earn Rs 200-300 a day or those who survive on paltry government pensions, are the ones who are suffering. The move does not seem to have made an impact on the rich,” Pandey told The Times of India.

She also accused Modi of being anti-Hindu and said the Bharatiya Janata Party had deliberately introduced the scheme just before the Hindu wedding season. “Thousands of families were forced to borrow money from their friends and relatives, some others had to postpone, curtail or even cancel the ceremonies. At the same time, leaders of the so called Hindutva party were busy promoting Islamic banking in the country,” she added. She was referring to the first Sharia-compliant banking service launched by BJP leader and state co-operation minister Subhash Deshmukhin September. Another leader of the Mahasabha said the move will lead to “de-Modi-tisation of the country.”

The outfit’s Uttar Pradesh spokesperson Ashok Kumar Pandey, on the other hand, said Modi was trying to get support for the “fake surgical strikes”. He cross-border attacks have surged after the strikes, the newspaper reported. “The surgical strikes, if there were any, haven’t done the country any good,” Pandey said.

The Modi government on the night of November 8 had announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would no longer be legal tender. The country has been grappling with a severe cash crunch since then. The Centre has been receiving flak from the Opposition for the step. While former prime minister Manmohan Singh had called the move “a monumental management failure”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said that it was a “draconian decision”. Aam Aadmi Party chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had alleged that the BJP had informed its “friends” about the move before the announcement.