Demonetisation to be Congress's focus for UP polls

NEW DELHI: Demonetisation is set to become a campaign issue against BJP, with Congress deciding to seize upon the controversy to kick off the third leg of its mass contact for Uttar Pradesh polls.
The opposition party will 'gherao' the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) office in Kanpur on Friday and the protest will be followed by a public meeting focussed on the troubles faced by common people. The RBI siege and the ensuing offensive will mark the first occasion of demonetisation figuring in electioneering, hitherto limited to protests in Parliament and outside.
The decision to pitchfork the currency ban on the electoral turf conveys a belief in Congress and the larger opposition that demonetisation, which found tremendous support among people as a measure to curb black money, had a dimension of public inconvenience which could be tapped. Importantly, it indicates that Congress may use the post-currency ban crunch in the rest of its state campaign.
The Kanpur show will be the start of the third phase of Congress's campaign after Rahul Gandhi's 26-day 'Deoria to Delhi' yatra and 'Rahul Sandesh Yatra' carried out by special raths and local leaders in districts. To revive its stalled campaign, Congress sources said the party would organise public rallies at district level to be held by state leaders. After Kanpur, the show will move to Bahraich, and is likely to take in Gorakhpur and Varanasi among other places.
Sources said the rallies would target an audience of 15,000 people and bigger attendance would be sought when Rahul later enters the fray as the main speaker.
The party has decided to mainly target BJP, instead of SP and BSP, as Rahul did during his 26-day yatra, and the note ban provides another opportunity to amplify the pitch against the Modi government.