He said the Centre first used demonetisation and subsequently UPI to encourage digital payments, creating a habit among citizens before introducing charges on certain transactions. He also questioned if merchants would absorb the 0.4 per cent MDR or pass the cost on to customers

The controversy erupted after Shah, speaking at the Rajbhasha Sammelan in Navi Mumbai, described Maharashtra as a leading multilingual state and said there was no reason to oppose learning an additional national language alongside one’s mother tongue