 "Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi.")
After demanding the prime minister's resignation over demonetisation, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has directed a number of party seniors to press the topic at 28 press conference across the country on Thursday.
This is separate from the joint strategy the Congress will work out along with other parties against the note ban. On Friday, when the 50-day grace period for the ban comes to an end, the Congress will have former finance minister P Chidambaram in Delhi to attack the government.
Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam will hold a press conference in the PM's parliamentary constituency of Varanasi.
Among the other speakers are C P Joshi in Lucknow, Salman Khurshid in Chennai, Ambika Soni in Jammu, Raj Babbar in Jalandhar, Rehman Khan in Guwahati, Mohan Prakash in Bhopal, Hari Prasad in Thiruvananthapuram, Shakeel Ahmad in Kolkata and P C Chacko in Visakhapatnam.
The attack through the media would be followed by a nationwide protest on January 5, for which Gandhi has asked state units to mobilise support. Congress strategists said the party will dent the personal credibility of the PM via the protests and also question his integrity by highlighting the Sahara-Birla papers which it says do show he took money from companies.
On Wednesday, Gandhi demanded a position paper on demonetisation from the government, saying people must know the number of jobs and other economic losses. And, a 50% rebate in sales and income tax, saying the note ban had hit the salaried class and small traders.
Urging the PM to remove the weekly cash withdrawal limit of Rs 24,000, he said the Centre should clarify the amount of undisclosed money unearthed after the note ban and deposit Rs 25,000 each in the account of a female member of every family below the poverty line.
