Rumour About Rs 15 Lakhs Promised By Modi Being Distributed Had Hundreds In Munnar Queuing Up To Open Savings Accounts

In the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections, one of the biggest promises that the BJP and then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi made was about bringing back the black money and distributing Rs 15 lakhs from it to every Indian citizen.

But after the elections, BJP backtracked on it and the party chief Amit Shah even told in an interview that it was an 'election jumla'.

Even after this the promise of Rs 15 lakh has refused to die down and keeps on resurfacing now and then, mostly in the form of WhatsApp forwards.

But what happened in Munnar, Kerala recently is unprecedented. For the past few a forward message has been spreading like wildfire in and around Munnar, implying that the Modi government has begun distributing the Rs 15 lakhs which was promised in installment through the India Post savings accounts and the first installment of Rs 3 lakhs is being distributed now.

Munnar is a tea plantation area and has a large population of plantation workers who are mostly illiterate.

As the message spread on WhatsApp over the weekend people began rushing to the nearest post offices to open savings accounts.

The post office staff were caught off-guard by the interest of people to open savings accounts. Many even stood in the queue for hours, leaving work to get the account opened. The rush was to bad that the post officials had to call in the police to control the crowds. It was only later that the real reason behind the rush of people to open the account was revealed and they had to clarify that the Rs 15 lakhs is not being distributed. They even had to put out notices in Tamil and Malayalam telling people not to fall for fake news.

By then some 1500 people had already opened a new saving account there. Some people were even making money by filling up the application forms for those who could not read and write.

So, what happened?

The original message was about Postal savings bank account scheme by the Central government opening in Munnar on last Sunday. Under the scheme, anyone with an Aadhaar card and two passport size photos could open an Indian Postal Payment Banking Account paying a deposit of Rs 100. The account can be used for a number of purposes including cash transfer of amount up to Rs 1 lakh and making bill payments.

With the majority of the tea plantation workers being illiterate or semi-literate, the message was somehow misunderstood and people started giving theirs owns spins to it.