[questime]

Hackernews is viewing this too much from an American - "Oh they want to get rid of privacy" lens. The reality is that this move is to hurt the opposition party more than the BJP, but nobody in India really wants a completely surveilled currency because most of parliament is involved with dirty money (Inevitable when you get paid nothing but have insane amounts of political power).

[throwaway384629]

Absolutely. Every political party has cash that they use in election. So by doing the demonetisation, ruling party can virtually disable their opponent parties while their own party members enjoy the insider knowledge and makes tons of money by doing deals. They use the same money to feed to mainstream news channels who then promotes the ruling party as a fighter against corruption.

Did some BJP leaders go on a land purchasing spree before the demonetisation policy was announced as per news? [1]

[1] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/bjp...

[unmole]

> The reality is that this move is to hurt the opposition party more than the BJP,

This makes zero sense. The 2000 rupee notes remain legal tender. And given the long time lines, nobody is going to have any trouble converting their unaccounted cash. And why wait until after the Karnataka elections if the intention was to hit the opposition?

[kshacker]

The big Kahuna is in December with lot more people going to polls then. which means election campaigning will be in full swing in November maybe late October too. The currency ends September 30, so the 2000 will not be useful for them.

[unmole]

They have 4 months to get rid of them. That is assuming that they are sitting on hard cash which is not how political parties work.