With reference to Shekhar Gupta’s article, “The race to demonetise Modi” (December 3), the move by the prime minister to ban Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes is his make-or-break strategy for 2015.
Narendra Modi has been toying with some out-of-the-box ideas and is trying out various schemes, plans and policies to “remonetise” himself for a longer period. He is now attempting to kill two birds with one stone — dealing with the menace of black money and appropriately reducing the high cash-gross domestic product ratio with his demonetisation move.
Gupta has brilliantly analysed the aggressive mindset of frustrated political leaders, namely West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal. They have several things in common. They both relish the idea of being called street fighters. But their past simply refuses to leave them alone.
Gupta has tactfully applied the perception of the shrewd Kautilya to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, for his support to demonetisation.
Let me also quote T N Ninan’s observations in his article, “Four weeks later” (December 3): “notebandi, at this stage looks like a bad idea, badly executed on the basis of some half-baked notions”.
Another author, Sunil Sethi, equates Modi’s “notebandi” with the coerced era of “nasbandi”, an ill-conceived and ill-fated movement of Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency in 1975. Sethi goes on to say “success has many fathers but failure is an orphan”. We will have to wait and watch after December 30 to make some concrete assessment on this matter.
In any case, the virtually divided Opposition — measured by the low Index of Opposition Unity — indicates that it has missed an opportunity to corner the government for its messy, unplanned and ad-hoc implementation of demonetisation.
Kumar Gupt Panchkula
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