Didi plays first-mover cash card

TT, Calcutta, Dec. 22: Mamata Banerjee today announced a Trinamul-led "Modi hatao, desh bachao (oust Modi, save the country)" campaign to protest demonetisation.

The chief minister said the campaign would begin in Bengal on January 1 and would be taken to other states over a few weeks.

"Demonetisation is the biggest scam since Independence. Modi hatao, desh bachao is our only slogan.... Modi is bhalo (good) only for those whose intentions are kalo (dark)," Mamata told a news conference at the Trinamul headquarters in Calcutta after an extended core committee meeting of the party.

"There was Alibaba and 40 (thieves). Now, Alibaba and four others are taking all decisions, bulldozing everyone else, even the BJP. Even the finance minister (Arun Jaitley) does not know what is going on," she added.

Trinamul sources saw in Mamata's campaign announcement a renewed sense of urgency to regain control of the pan-India anti-demonetisation movement.

At a time Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has taken pole position in the campaign against the implementation of the demonetisation drive, the Bengal chief minister made it a point to remind people that her party was the "first" to object to the note recall.

"We understood the dangerous effects of demonetisation immediately. We reacted in less than 45 minutes of the announcement (on November 8). We were the first," she said.

"It's good that others have joined. More will, in the coming days, I'm sure. Better late than never," Mamata added.

The sources said that at today's meeting, attended by elected representatives and leaders of frontal organisations of Trinamul, Mamata declared an all-out attack on the BJP.

The chief minister said her party would organise protest rallies in every block of Bengal between January 1 and 8, and then in other states.

On December 28, Trinamul district presidents will meet block-level chiefs and prepare a report on "feedback from the ground" on the extent of the "damage" caused by the demonetisation drive.

The Trinamul sources said the examples cited by Mamata at today's news conference were a pointer to her discomfort with the Congress spearheading the anti-demonetisation protests.

"Rajiv Gandhi had over 400 MPs.... I don't know what happened in the Bofors matter, but a message had gone out to the people and he could not hold on to power," she said. "Likewise, I don't know if the Indira Gandhi government had actually attempted nasbandi (the vasectomy campaign of Sanjay Gandhi), but they had to go. Notebandi is how Modi will go," Mamata added.

"The Modi government has lost all credibility and has no moral right to continue in office," she said.