GST is Great Selfish Tax, tweets Mamata Banerjee; calls for Black Day on Nov 8

On November 8, the Narendra Modi intends to celebrate an 'anti-black money day' while the Opposition has vowed to hold protests against last year's demonetisation announcement.

Indrajit Kundu  | Edited by Dev Goswami
Kolkata, November 6, 2017 | UPDATED 18:00 IST
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banjeree (File photo)West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banjeree (File photo)

Highlights

  • 1
    Change Twitter DPs to protest demonetisation: Mamata Banerjee
  • 2
    Note ban was a disaster: Mamata
  • 3
    Opposition plans to hold protests on November 8.

 West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today slammed the Narendra Modi government by calling the Goods and Services Tax (GST) a "Great Selfish Tax to harass people and finish the economy".

The Trinamool Congress chief said demonetisation was a disaster and urged social media users to change their profile pictures to a black square on November 8 to protest against the note ban.

"Great Selfish Tax (GST) to harass the people. To take away jobs. To hurt businesses. To finish the economy. GoI totally failed to tackle #GST (sic)," Mamata posted on Twitter.

"#Noteban is a disaster. On #Nov8BlackDay to protest against this scam that destroyed the economy, let us also change our Twitter DP to black," the chief minister also tweeted.

On November 8, the day same day last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a surprise prime-time address invalidated high-value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, the government intends to celebrate an 'anti-black money day', a nod to one of the self-confessed goals of the demonetisation exercise.

Opposition parties, on the other hand, plan to hold nationwide protests over an exercise they said harmed the Indian economy as well as the country's small and medium businessmen and traders.

The Opposition plans to observe a "black day" on November 8, a Wednesday as it seeks to continue its attack on the Modi government on the topic of the economy. Trinamool Congress too had earlier announced that it would observe Black Day on November 8 to protest against demonetisation across West Bengal.

During her party's extended core committee meeting on October 25, Banerjee had asked party leaders to take the campaign against to the block level in every district to corner the BJP over demonetization through rallies and protest meetings. The party also plans extensive use social media for its campaign against the Modi government.

Mamata's comments come just a day after PM Modi hit back at the Opposition, saying he wasn't afraid of protests and that his fight against corruption would continue. PM Modi also directly targeted the Congress party, whose vice-president Rahul Gandhi has been leading a frontal attack on the Modi government on economy.

Gandhi has said that demonetisation hurt the nation's small and medium traders and is even expected to spend November 8 with traders in poll-bound Gujarat's Surat.

WATCH: GST turns into war of acronym after West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee calls it Great Selfish Tax