The evil that men do lives after them
-Mark Antony in Julius Caesar

Had Mark Antony been in the picturesque Munnar now, he would have probably corrected himself: “The Rs 15 lakh ‘jumla’ that leaders dangle lives even after another general election.”

Long queues of hopefuls have sprouted before the post office at Munnar in Kerala, more than five years after Narendra Modi created an impression that the amount could be deposited in every Indian’s account if the black money stashed abroad was brought back.

So mesmerising has been the spell that even Amit Shah’s description of the 2014 campaign carrot as a “jumla” (figure of speech) in 2015 has done little to dissuade those who have lined up before the post office since last weekend.

They have been coming in their hundreds from across the hill town of Munnar and the surrounding cash crop plantations, demanding to open savings accounts and leaving the overworked postal staff tearing their hair in frustration.

“It’s all because of a mischievous WhatsApp message that apparently began circulating in the neighbourhood sometime late last week,” said a harried postmaster, K. Murugaiah, who had suffered a heart ailment six weeks ago and was advised rest.

Whoever wants the Rs 15-lakh dole, the message said, should open an account with the India Post Payments Bank, launched by Modi last September 1 as a house-to-house banking service under the postal department.

“We have been doing our best to debunk the rumour, but they won’t believe us,” Murugaiah told The Telegraph on Thursday.

“Until today we have opened 1,400 IPPB accounts in five days, 200 of them today alone,” the postmaster said. Before Sunday, the Munnar post office had “less than 100 IPPB accounts”.

Murugaiah said most of these clients were poor plantation labourers “who have to take a day’s leave to stand in queue with the hope of getting some money”, and employees of the tourist town’s many hotels and eateries.

Modi’s 2014 campaign pitch on the Rs 15 lakh deposit had become an issue in the 2019 general election in Kerala, where the BJP did not win a single seat.

Suresh Gopi, an erstwhile superstar who contested on a BJP ticket, had thundered before voters that Modi had not said Rs 15 lakh “would be shoved down the gullet” but merely assessed that the amount could be deposited if the black money was brought back, stressing the “if”.

Evidently, not many in Munnar, which has a high percentage of Tamil speakers, have heard the actor’s ill-mannered speech or, if they have, believed him.

It all started in the hill town on Sunday, the weekly holiday at the post office, when hundreds began queuing outside since early morning because it was their day off work too.

So, Murugaiah and his staff were forced to open the post office and work from 9am to 9pm, far beyond their usual closing time.

With the last day approaching for the postal department’s ongoing drive to open 1 crore IIPB accounts across the country in 100 days, the staff had initially thought the queues reflected a late burst to beat the August 10 deadline.

“But all of them were talking about ‘Rs 15-lakh’. We put up boards to dispel the rumour. I even addressed them. But no one would believe me,” Murugaiah rued.

With three of the post office’s nine employees on leave, the rush couldn’t come at a worse time, especially since opening an account involves heavy paperwork and takes far longer than, say, selling a bunch of postage stamps or registering a letter.

At Munnar, regular post office services have collapsed. “With only six of us to handle the crowd, it has become difficult to do our regular job,” Murugaiah said.