CHENNAI: Coming down heavily on the Centre over withdrawing the legal tender of high denomination notes, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday termed the exercise ‘Tuglakian’ and a “brutal economic attack” on the people and the banking system in the nation.
Addressing the 28th annual national conference of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) here, he said, “The Indian people and our banking system have been subjected to the most brutal economic attack over the past couple of months following the announcement of demonetisation on November 8.” He alleged that a conscious effort was on to undermine the nationalised banks and the cooperative banks for the benefit of vested interests.
Stating that the currency ban had shaken the core of the cooperative banking system, the “lifeline of rural India”, he said the cooperatives had suffered “collateral damage.”
“The collateral damage of the Tuglakian reform is that the cooperative banks were virtually forced to down their shutters,” he said, adding it was particularly so in Kerala which in the last decade had resisted the Vaidyanathan Committee recommendations.
According to him the credit societies in Kerala, with a combined deposit of Rs 1.2 lakh crore, were the strongest in the country. Referring to the Centre’s move to merge State Bank of India (SBI) and its subsidiaries, against which a sustained movement was on in Kerala, the Marxist veteran said even prior to the attacks on banks through demonetisation, the assault on regional banks had begun.
“The Kerala Government had passed a resolution in the Assembly asking the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to withdraw the decision to merge SBI and its subsidiaries. All the legislators voted in favour of the resolution but for the lone BJP member,” he said. Vijayan recalled that the High Court of Kerala had issued notices to the Union Finance Ministry, RBI, SBI, SBT and the state government on a petition seeking to stop the merger.