Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seen determined to go ahead with his demonetization move, ignoring opposition’s attacks, seems to be scared more over determined opposition from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Though he tried to put a `brave face’ by stating that more than 93 per cent of the five lakh people, who participated in a survey on Narendra Modi App, have supported government move, the BJP leadership said to be sensed that Mamata is bound to make a formidable impact on the public mood, particularly in Uttara Pradesh, where assembly elections are to be held early next year.
This was mostly due to her relatively `clean image’ on par with Modi. That’s why he tried to tarnish her image by accusing her of as a `culprit’ in Sharada chit fund scam. Particularly, BJP worried with Mamataji’s yesterday announcement that she will go every election-bound place in the country to expose Narendra Modi and asserted that “I can challenge that no one will vote for BJP”.
The sudden decision of the BJP president Amit Shah to cancel Prime Minister’s much-publicised Lucknow public meeting this evening, was said to be only after sensing that the public may not turn in large number due to prevailing ooutcry for exchange of their old. Even the public turnout at Modi’s rally in Agra on Nov 20 was said to be not up to the mark.
The rally aimed to mark the culmination of the BJP’s four Parivartan Yatras in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, which were flagged off early this month. The decision was taken after Amit Shah held a detailed consultation with finance minister Arun jaitley and finance secretary Shaktikant Das, who frankly told him it would take about a month to return normalcy at banks.
Though Modi and Amit Shah stated party winning seats in by polls as public support for demonetization, in fact they were worried over the steep fall in victory margin in Shahdol Lok Sabha seat (MP), from 2.41 lakhs in 2014 to 60,383 votes this time. At the same time they are scared with the impressive increase in Mamata’s TMC candidate’s margin. At Tamluk its candidate margins increased from 2.5 lakh in 2014 to 4.97 lakh, where as in Cooch Behar the margins too went up from 38,000 to 4.9 lakh.
