Why Modi is the champion of rollbacks

On November 23, when parties like Trinamool Congress and AAP vehemently opposed the demonetisation drive and demanded its rollback, Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu said rollbacks have no place in Narendra Modi's book. Addressing a "mahapanchayat" of Delhi Dehat Kisan Mazdoor in the capital, he said, "Wapas lena Modi ji ke khoon mein nahi hai".

On November 8, while announcing the decision to demonetise these two notes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, "From 10th November till 24th November the limit for such exchange (of old notes) will be four thousand rupees. From 25th November till 30th December, the limit will be increased."

On November 17, this decision was amended. People were allowed to exchange only Rs 2,000 as limit got reduced. On November 24, the Centre announced that the exchange of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes for new currency was being stopped at all banks.

So, while Modi promised the nation that the exchange limit would be increased from November 24, he actually stopped it on the same date. And so he did go back on one of his promises yet one of his ministers said, "Wapas lena Modi ji ke khoon mein nahi hai!"

This is not the first change made by the Modi government since the demonetisation drive kicked off on November 8. So far, 50 decisions in 17 days have been taken by the government on demonetisation and, it has, on an average reversed its own rules at a rate of three times a day.

Both the number and intensity of changes are so high that very few lawmakers would be aware of them. The average citizen is finding it hard to keep track of all the decisions on what one can and cannot do with one's own money.

The BJP may say that rolling back is not in Modi's blood but several U-turns of the government on different aspects of demonetisation defy their claim. The Narendra Modi government seems to be in the habit of rolling back decisions. One newspaper report counted 25 U-turns in the first 180 days of Narendra Modi.Land Acquisition was one of the biggest examples of flip-flops and rollbacks of Modi government.

His Pakistan policy too has seen several flip-flop-flips like the time when talks were cancelled after their envoy called a meeting with Hurriyat leaders ahead of the India-Pakistan bilateral talks only to change its stance later.

The decision to ban websites which contained pornographic material was revoked after facing the wrath of netizens.

In the last Union Budget, the government had turned 60 per cent of the corpus in EPF into a taxable component, but after facing unprecedented flak, that too was rolled back.

These were but a few examples there have been many more and while many of Modi government's decisions were ill-conceived and had to be retracted later, others were rolled back when the government succumbed to public and political pressure.

Every government does it and there is nothing wrong in accepting one's mistakes or amending decisions or policies. But making frequent U-turns and yet saying that rolling back is not in Narendra Modi's blood is definitely stretching things beyond acceptability or as one would say in Hindi, Venkaiahji, Yeh baat kuch hazam nahi hui.