Left to organise protest rallies from Monday

Kolkata: The Left parties in West Bengal have decided to organise a series of protests against the Centre’s demonetisation drive.

The 17 Left parties in the state held a meeting on Wednesday and it was decided that they would hit the streets with four-point demands.

The Left parties have demanded that all the banks, ATMs and post offices should be equipped with adequate currency notes of lower denominations, the banks should recover the non-performing assets and use it to waive off the debts of farmers, the exchange of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes should continue and the black money stashed in offshore accounts should be recovered.

With these demands, the Left leaders and workers will organise street-corner meetings and rallies across the state. The 17 Left parties will observe “Akrosh Diwas” (Protest Day) on November 28 and stage demonstrations outside the regional office of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

On November 29, a rally would be taken out from College Square to Y-Channel at Esplanade, while on November 30, a sit-in-demonstration would be held in every district of the state.

Meanwhile, to counter the Trinamul Congress’ (TMC) multiple rallies against the demonetisation, the state unit of BJP took out a rally to raise awareness about the benefits the Central government’s initiative and educate people on how the move would help in curbing the black money.