Congress has demanded that a financial emergency be declared in the country and a white paper be released on the "shrinking economy and rising frauds". The grand old party accused the BJP government of destroying the credibility of the country's economy and banking system and demanded that it should declare the names of wilful defaulters, along with the details of their non-performing assets (NPAs).

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too attacked the Government over an RBI report showing bank frauds have gone up by 15 per cent year-on-year in 2018-19, asking who is the guarantor allowing such "big bank frauds". 

"The Congress demands that a financial emergency should be declared in the country. We reiterate that the BJP government should release a white paper on the shrinking economy and rising frauds.

It is getting clearer by the day that the country is heading towards a major recessionary phase. This is a classic case of recession under expansionary trends, as whenever there are three continuous quarters of growth recession (reduction in growth quarter-on-quarter), the chances of slipping into a full-blown recession are significantly higher," said Congress spokespersons Jaiveer Shergill and Gaurav Vallabh at a special AICC Press briefing.

They added that once the June 2019 quarter numbers were announced, it would be clear that India was witnessing a reduction in growth for five consecutive quarters.

Vallabh said the problems that this phenomenon put forth were that natural recovery did not occur and the country had to solely rely on monetary policy actions, while the short-term stimulus remained short-term and only helped in assuaging wounds.

"The questions we want to ask the government are what is its response to the prolonged reduction in growth? Does it have any clue of what is actually wrong and who's responsible for the same," Shergill said.

As a responsible opposition, the Congress wanted the government to immediately issue a white paper on the state of economy, he added.

 He also alleged that frauds in the banking system shot up by 74 per cent to Rs  71,543 crore in the 2018-19 financial year, compared to frauds worth Rs   41,167 crore committed in the 2017-18 financial year.

Priyanka said the number of cases of frauds reported by banks saw a jump of 15 per cent year-on-year basis in 2018-19, with the amount involved increasing by 73.8 per cent in the year, the Reserve Bank of India's annual report showed.

"Country's biggest banking institution RBI is saying that bank frauds are increasing right under the nose of the government. In 2018-19, this theft has increased," Priyanka Gandhi said.  "Banks have been duped of Rs  72,000 crore. But, who is the guarantor who is allowing such big bank frauds to occur," the Congress general secretary asked.