Now, Se sides with Modi on 'historic demonetisation move'

New Delhi, Nov 22: Marking a complete U-turn in their stance on demonetisation, a delegation of Shiv Se MPs on Tuesday met Prime Minister rendra Modi and lauded the move as “a bold and historic decision” and assured of their full support. The MPs, who called on the Prime Minister in his Parliament House office, stated that they are with the BJP-led tiol Democratic Alliance (NDA). “Our MPs had a good meeting with the Prime Minister. The delegation assured him that we are all in the NDA,” a senior party leader told IANS here.

“Nothing much or politically significant should be read in the Se participating in the march to Rashtrapati Bhavan with Trimool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee,” he added.

However, the delegation led by the party’s floor leader in Rajya Sabha, Sanjay Raut, urged the Prime Minister “to make judicious use of the dense network of cooperative banks and allow them to participate in the demonetisation drive”.

According to sources, during the meeting, Modi also recalled the BJP’s long association with the Shiv Se. In fact the Shiv Se, once a regiol outfit in Maharashtra, has been the first ally of BJP since the late 1980s.

The two-page memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister, however, said that the “on-ground situation” in the last 13 days — since the announcement to ban high denomition currencies — has become “alarming”. The letter signed, among others, by Sanjay Raut and party MPs like Andrao Adsul (deputy leader of Se in Lok Sabha), Chandrakant Khaire and Arvind Sawat, pointed out that as per the government directives, the rural and cooperative banks and credit societies are not eligible to handle currency exchange transactions. “A large section of our population, who don’t have accounts in tiolised banks, has been put in a precarious situation after this move,” the letter said.

The Se also demanded that the banned notes collected by various institutions in the cooperative sector in Maharashtra since demonetisation “be accepted by the tiolised banks”. (IANS)