February 2, 2017
Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien speaks on his Notice under Rule 267 regarding political vendetta by the Centre
Sir, when the debate on demonetisation was happening between November 16 and December 16, 2016, 15-16 Opposition parties were meeting every day. There was a joint effort to highlight the pain of the people. There were deaths caused; as of now 135 people have died. There were issues for the economy, and people were suffering.
If you check the records of the Rajya Sabha, on November 24, at 2.40 PM, it was mentioned in the speech that we can oppose demonetisation in our democratic ways because we had different views – the Opposition had one view and the Government had another view. But because we are opposing demonetisation that cannot be an excuse to send your agencies after us and to scare us.
And Sir, exactly what we feared has happened. Lok Sabha leader of Trinamool Congress – with 34 and 12, that is, 46 MPs – was called and arrested January 3, 2017. Sir, within one month of speaking this happened. Today it has happened to Trinamool Congress. Tomorrow it can happen to any member of any of the 15 Opposition parties.
Sir, this is a very serious issue. We can have political differences. Mamata Banerjee was the first person to flag demonetisation, one and a half hours after the Hon’ble Prime Minister made his announcement on November 8, 2016; not just Trinamool Congress, all opposition parties opposed it.
Why is this political vendetta happening? What are we coming to, Sir? 135 people died, but not even a word from this Government.
When we spoke, the Hon’ble Prime Minister was sitting there, the Leader of the House was sitting there; and we made it very clear – do not do political vendetta. The more you do political vendetta, the more we will firm our resolve to fight you on demonetisation.
