BHUBANESWAR: The Pradesh Congress Committee today demanded the resignation of Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel for the 'demonetisation mess' and compromising the autonomy of the federal bank.
Congress leaders and workers gheraoed the regional office of the RBI here denouncing the demonetisation and for what they saw as allowing the Narendra Modi government to destroy the autonomy of the central bank.
The demonstration was part of a call for country-wide protests by the Congress.
Highlighting the plight of the common people due to the note ban, Congress leaders said that demonetisation was indeed a surgical strike on farmers, labourers, shopkeepers, small traders, the middle class and unorganised sector.
The part said the wheel of development has come to a standstill, with crores of people are still lining up in front of banks and ATMs even after 70 days of demonetisation.
The demonetisiation has failed to wipe out black money and farm and cooperative sectors are the worst hit after the imposition of a unilateral embargo on district central cooperative banks and primary agricultural agriculture societies.
A protest rally taken from the Congress Bhavan to the regional office of the RBI was led by former Speaker of the Lok Sabha and former Union minister Shivraj Patil, leader of opposition in the Odisha Assembly Narsing Mishra, Pradesh Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan and AICC secretary in charge of Odisha Subhankar Sarkar.
Addressing mediapersons, Patil said RBI's autonomy and statutory powers have been compromised and the RBI governor is responsible for the erosion of the credibility of the central bank.
"We demand that all restrictions on bank for withdrawal of money by the people should be immediately lifted and the Centre should issue a white paper on the amount of black money detected," he added.
Harichandan said the demonetisation will be the main poll plank of the party in the panchayat elections.