Demonetisation war: Oppn turns the heat, set to march outside Parliament on Wednesday

New Delhi [India], Nov. 21 (ANI): Taking the war over demonetisation to the next level, the Opposition parties have decided to protest against the Centre in front of the Gandhi statue outside the Parliament on Wednesday. The decision was taken in the meeting called today by the Opposition ahead of the second week of the Parliament today. Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) staged a protest outside the Parliament demanding the rollback of the demonetisation scheme. "Many opposition parties met this morning including Rahul Gandhi and jointly it has been decide that Wednesday morning all of us will be in dharna on Wednesday," TMC spokesperson Derek O'Brien said here. This come as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earlier on Saturday issued a whip to its party's Rajya Sabha members, asking them to be present in the House for three days starting today. Both the Houses of Parliament were earlier on Friday adjourned following furore over the Centre's move to scrap Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes. The Opposition has been clamouring for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence in the Parliament and has accused him of avoiding the questioned posed by them regarding the matter at hand. "Fifty five people have died. Crores stand in line for the past 11 days. Banks do not have cash, ATMs do not have notes. People have money in their accounts, but there is no money to be withdrawn from their accounts," Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, adding that the Prime Minister was missing from parliament since the Winter Session began. Speaking to reporters here, Leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said that an adjournment motion has been passed on this issue and the opposition will be looking to raise the matter of demonetisation in the Parliament unitedly. "We will start the discussion on the issue and then we are going to insist on the Prime Minister's presence in the house. We are all against blackmoney, but the Centre's intention is different regarding demonetisation," Kharge said. According to reports, the Centre had turned down the Opposition's demand saying that the Prime Minister would not speak in the Rajya Sabha on the demonetisation issue. However, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi is likely to speak in the Lok Sabha today. Yesterday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Amit Shah turned up the heat on the opposition in a strong move to corner them on the demonetisation debate, saying that opposition parties were climbing "the same tree like rats, cats and snakes to escape the demonetisation flood", and appealed to the people to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi change the country by giving him 15 years "from panchayat to Parliament". Addressing BJP workers in Chandigarh, Shah trained his guns on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for coming down heavily against demonetisation and said he was not surprised by Gandhi's reaction since the last two UPA governments were "synonymous with scams". The opposition has called the Centre to form a joint parliamentary committee for probing allegations of prior information on demonetisation being leaked to BJP leaders. (ANI)