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The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has decided to launch a campaign against the governmentâÂÂs decision of demonetization. All major Left parties have also extended their support for this campaign.

The decision was taken at the ongoing three day Central Committee meeting at Thiruvananthapuram where the party also demanded withdrawal of all restrictions on the withdrawal of money by people from their bank accounts. In a statement issued on the concluding day of the meeting, the CPI (M) also sought immediate debt waiver for farmers suffering due to disruption of normal agricultural activities due to shortage of money, doubling of allocation for MNREGA scheme and an immediate compensation to families of those who lost their lives standing in lines outside the banks and those who lost their jobs and livelihoods. The CPI (M) will conduct an independent campaign in the last fortnight of January exposing the real intention of the demonetization as a part of this BJP governmentâÂÂs commitment to neo-liberal economic reforms and on the above demands, the statement said.“The demonetization of the 1000 and 500 rupee notes announced by the Prime Minister on November 8 has caused immense loss to a large part of our economy plunging crore of people into agony and loss of livelihood. The Prime MinisterâÂÂs appeal for a fifty day time frame after which he assured things will come back to normalcy is over and normalcy is far from being reached. On the contrary, the agonies of people continue to mount. The restrictions on cash withdrawals from the peopleâÂÂs own money deposited in banks continue,âÂÂâ the statement said.None of the four objectives â combatting black money; corruption; counterfeit currency and terrorist funding — that the Prime Minister listed as the reason for the demonetization are achievable through this move. More than 90 per cent of the black money, the Prime Minister himself publicly said is parked in tax havens abroad. Not a rupee of this has been touched nor is there any move to pursue the recovery of these monies. With almost all the demonetized currency now returning to the banking system it is clear that whatever black money was held in cash has now been converted into white money and lies deposited in the banks. Final figures for the deposits in the banks are yet to be made public. If it exceeds the value of recalled notes then it means that all the counterfeit currency in circulation has also been legitimised. The seizure of huge quantum of new notes is indicative of the fact that high level corruption exists. Far from eliminating corruption, this move has only created newer and higher forms of corruption, the CPI (M) said.
“As far as combating terrorist funding is concerned that this demonetization has not made any dent is obvious from the fact that since the September 30 Ã¢ÂÂsurgical strikesâ happened, 33 security personnel have lost their lives due to terrorist attacks. The consequent death toll of security personnel in 2016 has been recorded as double the death toll in 2015. Lives of crores of Indians have been devastated by this demonetization. This is bound to impact upon the economic inequalities in the country. Already in the two years since this BJP government assumed office
inequality has sharply risen. In 2014, 1 per cent of IndiaâÂÂs population, the ultra-rich held assets worth 49 per cent of our GDP. By 2016 as a result of PM ModiâÂÂs neo-liberal policies this figure went up to 58.4 per cent. With these effects of demonetization the enriching of the rich and the impoverishment of the poor is bound to intensify. With all the declared objectives not being met, the real objective of this demonetization became clear with the thrust for shifting from a cash economy into a digital economy, the statement said.
Describing as ridiculous, the talk of shifting to digital payments, the CPI (M) said in rural India only 13 per cent, 108 of the 834 million people have access to internet connections. Only 26 per cent of the people have access to smart phones. Given this predominant dependence on cash transactions, the devastation of many of the sectors has been enormous. Simultaneously, its thrust to move towards digital transactions is a bonanza for profit maximization to international finance capital and
corporates. Each digital transaction carries a transaction cost which is an additional burden on the consumer and the source of profit for the corporates. Clearly this demonetization exercise has been undertaken by this government as part of IndiaâÂÂs subservience to it neo-liberalism, the party said.
On political corruption, the Central Committee said the Prime Minister Modi has asked all political parties to come clean on their funding and be transparent.  The Prime Minister must first answer how the BJP is funding his political rallies all across the country and public declare the expenditure on each.  Till date, the country does not know how much PM Modi spend on his 2014 election campaign.  Will the Prime Minister accept the CPI(M)âÂÂs suggestion to ban all corporate funding to political parties?  Will the Prime Minister accept that the expenditure of political parties incurred during elections will be included in the ceiling prescribed by the Election Commission on the candidates, it sought to know.
The CPI(M) considers as a completely anti-democratic suggestion to hold Assembly and General elections simultaneously. Independent IndiaâÂÂs electoral history began with simultaneous elections in 1952.But this was disrupted by the ruling parties at the Centre indulging in gross misuse of Article 356 and dismissing democratically elected state governments.  Further, in a democracy, a coalition government can collapse making it inevitable to go back to the people.  Precluding this would mean
the denial of elementary democratic rights and gross violation of federal structure of our Constitution.”