Withdrawal Of Rs 2,000 Notes To Checkmate Parties Ahead Of 2024 Polls? Know What BJP’s Baijayant Panda Says

Bhubaneswar: With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announcing withdrawal of Rs 2,000 notes, BJP’s national vice-president Baijayant Panda sees it as a plausible move to checkmate political parties hoarding cash for elections next year.

Baijayant, a former MP from Kendrapada in Odisha, in a release on Friday, revealed his first thoughts on the RBI’s announcement. Since people have until September 30 to turn the Rs 2,00o notes in, no one can complain of inconvenience, particularly because of widespread prevalence of simple and easy digital transactions now, he said.

Though honest, tax paying citizens and businesses should have no issues with this, he wondered what those, who had again started hoarding and dealing in huge amounts of cash, far beyond normal requirements, would do.

“There are rumours (eg. in my hometown Bhubaneswar) about old-paradigm political parties had once again amassed and stored large hoards of cash in preparation for elections. What do they do now?” he asked, in what is perceived to be an oblique remark on his former party BJD.

“I predict a sharp surge in spending by these parties right away to get whatever value out of their illicit cash before it becomes worthless paper (for they can only turn in or convert legit cash into other denominations). But this will not be as easy as before, because of the regularisation of the economy in these past few years, with Aadhaar-PAN linkage and many other steps,” the BJP leader said.

Stating that in any manner they would spend would be significant and contribute to boost consumption in the months till September, he said the economy, already the fastest growing among large nations, should get further turbocharged with this boost.

“But those political parties who had been stashing cash hoards to fuel their old-style campaigns in the elections later this year and next, have had their plans upended. It will be interesting to see how they react,” he concluded.