Speak up, Chidu tells industry captains

Hailing BJP’s former finance minister Yashwant Sinha for “speaking the truth about the economy”, Congress on Wednesday asked top industrialists and economists to overcome their fear and express their true feelings on the issue.

“Industry must speak up. They talk to us privately. But they should overcome fear. I appeal to those who are knowledgeable about economy to speak and write without fear. Dar ko chhod do (Shun fear),” former finance minister P Chidambaram said at an AICC press briefing.

“Top US businessmen quit the advisory committees in their country because of what their President was doing and saying. I am not asking them to do that but they should say what is happening.”

He also referred to the fear among MPs, editors, television anchors and experts, and the “brazen attempts by the Narendra Modi Government to browbeat them”.

The provocation for this critique on the “attempt to create a fear psychosis” was BJP veteran Yashwant Sinha’s blunt observation in a newspaper article in which he wrote: “Instilling fear in the minds of the people is the name of the new game”.

Chidambaram also asked the government to concede what Sinha has said -- about oil bonanza being wasted, private investment drying up, dwindling exports, demonetisation disaster and illconceived GST.

“How long will the government hide behind the rhetoric of the Prime Minister and the slogans of the party,” he asked.