The Congress on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of having misled the country by sharing a “highly suspect” GDP growth number a day earlier. The Opposition party, which has taken on the Government on the demonetisation issue, also termed the GDP figures very “surprising” which would dent India’s global credibility.
Former Union Minister Anand Sharma said the GDP numbers released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) are “misleading” as these do not factor in the adverse impact of demonetisation, including losses in jobs and production.
“The GDP numbers that have been released are surprising and highly suspect. The GDP growth as projected is questionable and will also undermine the crediblity of Indian data globally,” said Sharma.
Asking the Prime Minister and Finance Minister not to “mislead” the public and address the real issues instead, the senior Congress leader said the Government “propagandists” should refrain from “premature celebrations and misplaced euphoria”.
“The prime minister and the finance minister remain in denial in furtherance of their narrow political agenda for short-term benefits and are not addressing the real issues. The Government, the prime minister and the finance minister are guilty of misleading the people by ignoring the sufferings inflicted on the poor, especially the farm labour, the factory workers and the daily wage earners due to their ‘reckless’ decision,” he said.
Sharma said as per its own admission, the CSO has stated that it has not been able to collate the data of impact of demonetisation, including the losses in jobs and production especially in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector.
“Therefore, the GDP numbers, ignoring the harsh ground realities and based on increase in revenue from indirect taxes, are artificial and highly misleading,” he said. He said institutions monitoring the Indian economy and analyists have pegged the loss to the economy at Rs 2.50 lakh crore post demonetisation.
Sharma said economic parameters are looking down and job losses are mounting, so there cannot be a high economic growth in this backdrop.