Derek O'Brien: This Budget is a story of demonetisation

He said govt confirmed demonetisation failed else they would have given numbers of money collected

Sir, the Speaker, who moved the motion on behalf of the government started off with telling us about yoga, which we think is a very nice way to start his speech. 

And, after that, he went on to tell us some wonderful stories about little-known people, who have won the Padma Shri, and how the government had found these people and awarded them with the Padma Shri.

They are not celebrities. They are kind of unknown people, who had done good work. In that same tone, I wish to enlighten this House about a few more unknown people with three or four little stories before I get down to the main points of my speech.

Sir, Sudarsin Surin lives in Marangabahal village in Odisha. Sir, when his two-year-old son fell ill, he took his son on a bicycle and travelled 7 kilometres to reach the Meghapal hospital. On reaching there, the doctors advised him to take his child to Sambalpur hospital, which was about 40 kilometres away from Meghapal, as the baby was critical. 

Sir, he asked the auto-rickshaw drivers to take him there but he only had Rs 500 notes with him. After three hours, sadly, the baby succumbed to his injuries. 

Sir, there are many stories like this. Sir, there is one Komali, an 18-month-old baby. The parents didn’t have the new currency to buy medicines and the private hospital in Andhra Pradesh — it is not about Andhra Pradesh alone; it is across the country, but this particular incident was in Andhra Pradesh — refused to accept old currency notes. Komali is now no more with us.

Suresh was all of 18 years from Uttar Pradesh. He was a BSc second-year student. He hanged himself. Why? Because he could not withdraw money to pay the college examination fees.

Take the case of Noel Topno in West Bengal. Suresh was 18 years old while Noel Topno was 52 years old. He was the chief manager of a Central Bank of India branch. He lost consciousness and had a cardiac arrest while working. 

Sir, I ask this government, they don’t have to give Padma Shris for these families, Padma Shri is not required, but one-minute silence, at least, in Parliament, in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha! One hundred and twenty people or, some people say, 135 people have died. My party, the Trinamool Congress, from day one has been very clear on our views within 50 minutes of the honourable prime minister finishing his speech on November 8 — and I use the word historic because history has two sides. History can be good and history can be bad. So, it was historic. No doubt about it. So, this list has been compiled. The media has this list of 120 deaths. 

Sir, no Padma Shri but one-minute silence? But, the question is: Has the government even acknowledged these deaths? Have they expressed any condolences for these deaths? Have they told us in November, December and January, how these deaths would be prevented? What measures did they take? Sir, in a situation like this, it cannot be business as usual. It cannot and it must not be business as usual. We have been focusing on the pains of demonetisation and that is why, sir, today, I will be sticking only to the President’s address. 

Fifty six seems to be a favourite number of this government. In terms of 56 or chhappan, I am only sticking to 55 because this is para 55 on page 11, in the 4,902 words of the presidential address, which refers to demonetisation in about eight or nine lines. 

We are asking for withdrawal of deposit limits. Sir, yesterday, the finance minister made a speech. We did not come from our party to listen to his speech, nor did we come the previous day because we believe and our point was that for demonetisation, Parliament was ignored and that was our way of stating over the last two days that you people don’t need Parliament because you have a one-man band.

To quote from the finance minister’s speech — and I am going back to para 55 of the President’s speech — the finance minister said, “a trusted custodian of public money”. That is the government’s role. I ask, sir, are you the only trusted custodian of the public money because you are not allowing the public to withdraw their private money for which they pay tax? So, we appeal and urge this government to stay away from platitudes. From tomorrow or Monday, please stop all the restrictions that you have placed on the withdrawal limit. 

One thing got confirmed after the speech, in this booklet of about 4,000 words, and the finance minister’s speech. The good thing, at least, which the government has confirmed, is that demonetisation has not worked, because if it had, they would have given us some numbers. They would have shared as to how much has been collected and how much has been given out.

I read the Economic Survey with a great deal of interest and I must congratulate the government on the literary part of it. There were some beautiful quotations, including from Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Arvind Adiga. There were very, very nice literary quotations. I am not getting into the content or the financial part because there was nothing there. There was nothing there in the Budget, anything worthwhile. Sir, this is a story of demonetisation. 

Edited excerpts from the speech of Trinamool Congress member of the Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address, in New Delhi on February 2