Kerala: CPM to hold public trial of PM Modi over demonetisation today

Event follows CPM central committee's decision to hold nationwide protests against demonetisation

Kerala’s ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), will hold a symbolic “public trial” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in about 2,000 locations in the state on Wednesday, according to a report published in Livemint. 

The event follows the CPM central committee’s decision to hold nationwide protests against demonetisation and “imposition of digital payment methods”, party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said over telephone.

All senior CPM leaders in Kerala will attend the event, he said, including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who had met with Modi in Delhi on Monday.

CM Vijayan will lead 'the public trial of PM Modi' to be organised on the eve of Republic Day in Thiruvananthapuram, while former chief minister V S Achuthanandan and party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan will lead the mass campaign against Modi's 'anti-people policies' in Pathanamthitta and Thrissur respectively, reported Times of India. 

Many states have objected to the Centre’s decision to declare the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes illegal tender from 9 November citing the negative fallout on the common man and on state finances.

In December, while Vijayan led a mass protest in front of the regional office of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), against not allowing cooperative banks to function for not allowing cooperative banks to exchange or accept deposits in old notes .

Finance minister Thomas Isaac penned a book where he argued that India’s loss over demonetisation would be around Rs 3 lakh crore considering at least a 2% reduction in the country’s GDP. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister P Chidambaram have also been critical of demonetisation's impact on GDP. 

The CPM’s loud criticism also has political hues attached to it. The government it leads is trying to push back Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has gained ground in the state, further said the financial daily. 

In last year’s assembly election, while the ruling Left Democratic Front won 91 seats in the 140-member assembly, the BJP, for the first time in history, doubled its vote share. The party won one seat and came second in seven others.

Consequently, the confrontation between CPM and the BJP has escalated in Kerala, analysts say. Last weeek, a BJP worker was hacked to death at Andallur. At least six murders of party workers were reported in Kannur last year with casualties on both the CPI(M) and the RSS sides, reported The Indian Express.