NEW DELHI: As the 50-day deadline for depositing old currency notes approaches, PM Narendra Modi seems ahead in a hard-fought battle with the opposition over whether the “surgical strike” on black money is working.
The political scuffle will only intensify as elections to UP, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur approach, the results of which will be inevitably read as a verdict on demonetisation.
But as the initial, traumatic phase of “notebandi” ends, Modi seems to have managed to retain popular support in the face of demands that he resign as people continue to face hardships.
After successes in municipal elections in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Chandigarh, BJP claims that demonetisation has received a thumbs up, all the more because its rivals made the decision an election issue.
Though civic polls can reflect local factors intensely, the absence of a backlash will reassure the BJP as the PM uses every public speech to attack opponents, who he accuses of supporting black money hoarders.
Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee have demanded Modi’s resignation for failing to restore normalcy, also attacking him over diaries alleging pay-offs to Modi when he was the Gujarat CM. The diaries seized in raids on the Sahara and Birla group offices were raised in a dramatic fashion by Rahul who said he was being prevented from speaking in Parliament as his revelations would lead to a political “earthquake”.
In the punch-counter punch BJP and Modi have won some crucial points with the opposition missing out on some crucial moments. While it managed to stall Parliament and maintain opposition unity, the Congress failed to anticipate that the government itself would turn obstructionist in the last few days of the winter session preventing Rahul from speaking.
The Congress’s decision to drop its insistence on an LS debate under a voting rule came late as by then BJP began arguing that it wouldn’t allow Rahul to hold the floor and target Modi and “force” a shutdown of Parliament.
Modi has brushed aside the Sahara and Birla diaries and the BJP pointed out that the Supreme Court has refused to consider the evidence strong enough to order a probe. More problematically for Congress, important non-NDA parties distanced themselves.
Unless Rahul follows up with more dirt on the PM, the charges may fail to stick.
But while they accuse him of shifting goalposts from black money to digitalisation, lack of a popular upsurge will worry them.