Mamata Banerjee Urges President to Save People from Note Ban Hardship

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged President Pranab Mukherjee to "save" the people of the country from the hardship caused by demonetisation and the resultant cash crisis, while claiming that the CBI was being used to victimise her party.

"I urge the President, who is the constitutional head of the country, that if some government through its arbitrary decisions takes the country to the brink of disaster, as the protector of the Constitution give protection to the people and save the people," the Trinamool Congress chief said.

"Famine has started. Indications of the beginning of the famine are coming. So save the people. If people don't survive then nothing will happen," she said while inaugurating the 'Mati Utsav' (Soil Festival) in Kolkata.

Asking the common people to rise in protest, Banerjee said, "there will be some hardship, but someone has to bell the cat. Trinamool Congress will do that".

"We will take care of all the hardship that may befall us owing to our protests," she said.

Earlier in a series of tweets, she demanded lifting of the restrictions imposed from time to time by the Centre.

"Restrictions should be removed. Hardships being faced by millions due to #DeMonetisation", she said.

"Trinamool Congress is organising nationwide protest against Modi babu's shameless flop-show #NoteBandi," she wrote in another tweet.

Banerjee claimed that her party and its leaders were being victimised for protesting against the demonetisation of high value notes and its fallout.

"They (BJP-led Centre) have turned the CBI into a Conspiracy Bureau of India," she said referring to the agency's arrest of TMC MPs Sudip Bandopadhyay and Tapas Pal in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam.

"We don't care about that. If he can, Modi babu may put all of us in jail, but we will not stop talking for the people," she added.

"Even if they take us from Bengal to Odisha, Delhi or Uttar Pradesh, it does not matter, every place is our country," Banerjee said.

"But when people react then where will Modibabu go?" she said.

She said some small leaders are now talking big. These people will flee to America, London or Switzerland, but they will remain here.