Angered by the denial of permission to an all-party delegation from Kerala to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and in solidarity with the nationwide protest against the post-demonetisation crisis, the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) has called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the State on Monday.
The proposal to organise the hartal was mooted by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretariat. Later, LDF convener Vaikom Viswan held consultations with leaders of various coalition parties and announced the hartal decision around noon on Thursday. Banks, hospitals and supply of milk and newspapers have been exempted from the hartal, which would begin at 6 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. on Monday.
In a statement, Mr. Viswan said the hartal had been called as part of the countrywide protest against Central government’s decision to demonetise high-value currency notes that had ‘pushed the entire country into anarchy’. The hartal is also intended to register the State’s protest against the Centre’s attempts to choke the State’s cooperative sector in the name demonitisation and denial of Prime Minister's appointment to the all-party delegation from the State to submit the resolution adopted by the State Assembly on the crisis in the cooperative sector post-demonetisation, he said.
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Although the resolution was adopted by the Assembly with the backing of both the ruling and Opposition alliances, Congress leaders sought to distance themselves from the LDF’s hartal call.
Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, currently in New Delhi for discussions on organisational issues with party national leadership, told reporters that the hartal should have been avoided given the hardships already being experienced by the people following demonetisation. The BJP State leadership too has come out against the LDF’s hartal call.