Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday continued his tirade against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his “absence” in the ongoing winter session of Parliament by asking the latter what was he scared of. Mr. Gandhi dared Mr. Modi to participate in the debate in Parliament on demonetisation to clarify everything.
The Prime Minister had “laughed” at the misery of people post-demonetisation (during his visit to Japan earlier this month) and become emotional while speaking on the issue, Mr. Gandhi told reporters on the Parliament premises,.
“Let’s see what emotions appear on his face when he comes to the Lok Sabha,” Mr. Gandhi said. “The main issue is that the Prime Minister doesn’t come to the Lok Sabha for discussion. The moment he comes to Lok Sabha, doodh ka doodh, paani ka paani ho jayega (everything will be clear).
“The Prime Minister doesn’t want to sit in the Lok Sabha. We have been stopped from speaking in the Lok Sabha. What you are you scared of ?” Mr. Gandhi asked.
Taking a dig at the Prime Minister over him addressing the Global Citizen Fest nearly a week ago, Mr. Gandhi said the Prime Minister can address “pop concerts” but doesn’t attend discussion on demonetisation in Parliament.
''The moment discussion takes place in the Lok Sabha in the presence of Mr. Modi, it will become clear who the Prime Minister had allegedly told about in advance about the November 8 move,'' he said
Mr. Gandhi alleged that BJP leaders were aware of the move.
Anand Sharma reiterates demand
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma reiterated the Opposition’s demand for Mr. Modi’s presence in Parliament during the demonetisation debate, saying that accountability had to be fixed for the chaos and the financial anarchy caused due to the move.
“The Prime Minister has to come [to Parliament). He has to explain. Accoutability has to be fixed...for the chaos and the financial anarchy. Prime Minister is also answerable and so is the RBI governor,” Mr. Sharma said.
The demonetisation move ''is an undeclared financial emergency.” The government needs to explain under which law it has put a curb on the withdrawal of “people’s own hard earned money“.
“Who authorises them...under which provision of the law they have [imposed withdrawal limit] . . .what is happening in the country is that people have been denied access to their own hard-earned money. No country in the world will allow such a situation to arise which has happened in our country,” he said.
Reiterating the demand for a joint parliamentary committee probe the issue, he described demonetisation as a “big scam” and suggested that there was a big surge in bank deposits in September as the information about the move was “selectively leaked.”
