Note ban anniversary : Cong stages a candle march protest

 New Delhi: The Congress' Delhi unit took out a candle march on the second anniversary of demonetisation on Friday to pray for people who "died while waiting in queues outside banks and ATMs" after the note ban was announced in 2016.

The march started from Jantar Mantar towards the RBI office here. However, police stopped it on Parliament Street.

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said the candle march was held to pray for "people who died in queues outside banks and ATMs, and to protest the impact of demonetisation on the common man and the country's economy".

Earlier in the day, Youth Congress members, accompanied by senior party leaders, staged a protest against demonetisation outside the RBI office. Security forces forcibly took the protestors to police station in a bus. 

"Around 70-80 Congress protesters, including Ashok Gehlot, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, were detained," police said.

The protesters wore masks and shouted slogans against the BJP-led government at the Centre. Amrish Ranjan Pandey, national spokesperson of the Youth Congress, said the protest was aimed at "highlighting the miseries of the nation since the last two years under the Modi regime. 

It is a protest against the 'failed' demonetisation of the Modi government wherein common people suffered its grave consequences," he said. 

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denomination bank notes would cease to exist as legal tenders. 

The withdrawal of the notes had led to a liquidity crunch and people stood in serpentine queues outside banks and ATMs to exchange old notes. 

Opposition parties have criticised the exercise as "ill-advised" and "disastrous" for the country, but the government has maintained that the move helped increase the tax base and allowed greater formalisation of the economy.