Opposition tears into Modi government over falling GDP

The Government’s own admission of India’s GDP or gross domestic product slowing down to 6.1% during January-March period on Thursday gave an ammunition to the Congress leaders to pounce upon Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for his false claims that the demonetisation did not hurt the economy. The Congress on its official Twitter handle said the real growth was only 4% if the GDP is calculated by the old methodology that was changed by the government to show false growth though it too stopped at 6.1%.

The Congress has been repeatedly asking the Finance Minister to publish growth figures for the last ten years, calculated both on new and old methodology as it will prove the extent of damage caused by the wrong policies of this Government.

The party leaders said the government’s own figures expose its lies and Jaitley should apologise to the nation for misleading it and questioning the wisdom of the economists who predicted a definite slowdown from the abrupt decision to scrap over 80% of the currency in circulation by demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

They said all the opposition parties were critical of the demonetisation crippling the economy and hitting employment but Jaitley remained in a denial mode, painting a rosy picture all through.

"Falling GDP, unemployment. Every other issue is manufactured to distract us from this fundamental failure," Congress vice President Rahul Gandhi said in a quick tweet before flying off on a tour of Telangana.

P Chidambaram said he has proved correct in his assessment of the demonetisation effect. "I had said demonetisation will affect growth by 1 to 1.5% Spot on. The GVA (Gross Value Addition) is down by 1.3%. Economy began slowing down in July 2016. Demonetisation made it worse. Between quarter 4 of 2015-16 and 2016-17, growth declined by 3.1%."

Other Congress leaders like Digvijaya Singh, Ajay Maken, Manish Tiwari, Salman Soz, Milind Deora, Deepender Hooda also jumped in with the Twitter comments on the declining growth rate and attributing it to the government’s obsession with the divisive politics.