At the meeting that featured BJP president Amit Shah, senior ministers Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh and patriarch LK Advani, the prime minister also said that the ruling party need not be defensive about the decision in parliament, where the winter session starts Wednesday.
Sources say the BJP firmly ruled out a rollback of the demonetization and said it would rather take on the opposition.Amit Shah, say the sources, urged party leaders to arm themselves to fight the opposition on demonetization, the army’s surgical strikes of September and One Rank One Pension for the military.
The meeting took place in parliament, almost at the same time as another gathering, of opposition parties strategizing ahead of the session.On Sunday, PM Modi was emotional when he declared, in Goa, that people had entrusted him to fight corruption and he was ready to do it and face the consequences.
“I know the forces up against me, they may not let me live… they may ruin me because their loot of 70 years is in trouble, but I am prepared,” he said.He also appeared to choke up while saying, “I was not born to sit on a chair of high office. Whatever I had, my family, my home…I left it for the nation…”
This afternoon, he told a large crowd in Uttar Pradesh: “It will be painful, but I am asking you to bear with me for 50 days. I will do everything in my power to lessen your suffering.”
Opposition unity against the demonetization decision saw arch enemies – Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and the Left – shaking hands today.
While the decision to pull big notes out of circulation to crack down on corruption has been widely welcomed, people have been tested in the past few days as they have been forced to stand for hours at banks and ATMs.
