As more and more skeletons come tumbling out of the cupboard of the BJP, but more particularly its president Amit Shah, Batukbhai Vala (name changed on request) crows in satisfaction that he had been right all along.

Two days before demonetisation, Batukbhai, a trader in various goods including textiles and pulses, had got wind of some unusual activity in the markets in Ahmedabad and Surat, including on a large scale by jewellers and gold merchants. When Narendra Modi made the sudden announcement of banning Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes within four hours from midnight on November 8, 2016, things fell into place for Batukbhai.

“The move was never as secret as it seemed,” he was always convinced. “Those close to Shah had wind of what was coming. There were deposits in the Ahmedabad District Co-operative Bank (of which Shah is a member and was a chairman once upon a time) not just for five days after demonetisation but from two-three days before. Those close to Shah and other BJP functionaries salvaged a good deal of their black money. I always knew it was a 70-30 deal,” he says.

The recent revelations by the Indo Asian News Service based on a RTI application that the ADCB collected Rs 750 crore in five days after the demonetization on November 8, 2016, therefore comes as no surprise to Batukbhai. On the contrary, he thinks the figure is conservative and could amount to ten times as much.

Batukbhai has been affiliated to the BJP in the past and is still well connected within the party. Most of his friends are similarly traders and small merchants and also affiliated to the BJP. He says it is this affiliation to the party in the home state of Modi and Shah that has ruined most of them. “The Congress may have had doh number ka paisa (unaccounted money) in some amount. But there was no compulsion on them to deposit in the banks controlled by the BJP. They may have lost some money or even managed to convert substantial amounts. But everyone associated with the BJP lost substantial sums because there was compulsion on them to deposit at particular banks and deposit at the commission stated. We all lost a lot of money.”

If Batukbhai is to be believed, the BJP leadership in Gujarat - and the country – had a measure of all their donors and affiliates and there was no escape from Big Brother. Even so, they may have been selective, rescuing some and throwing others to the Income Tax wolves.

“You cannot fathom how they have ruined a whole generation of us here in just a few months. We are still reeling. Vasuli toh bahut dur ki baat hai (recovery is a long way off).”