Hitting out at the Congress Party and other domestic critics of the Modi Government's initiatives on demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said these timely, far-reaching reforms have evoked global appreciation.
“There is global appreciation of the fact that India has the capacity and courage to carry out structural reforms like demonetisation and GST,” Jaitley told Indian reporters here on conclusion of his week-long US visit for the IMF-World Bank annual meetings.
It was not populism, but a recognition of India’s long-term interest that led the Modi Government to push ahead with these critical reforms, Jaitley said, noting: “Populism is what we did not indulge in. We could have let people live in a cash dominated economy and let India continue to have a shadow economy… (But) we struck a blow to that kind of an economy.”
As for the timing of the twin initiatives, the Finance Minister said it was the right time to press ahead as the country was having a high growth rate. “When the world was growing at two-and-a-half per cent, India was the fastest-growing major economy in the world. That was the time to really fix the roof. You don’t have to wait for a downward slide in order to do it,” he remarked.
Quizzed on the carping criticism not only by the Opposition parties but by some leaders from within the BJP fold as well such as former Union Ministers, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, Jaitley commented that the Congress was never interested in dealing with black money or the shadow economy, so their concern about demonetisation is 'natural'. On GST, however, it was curious that the Congress should be opposing the initiative since it was pushing for it while heading the predecessor UPA Government.
“Now, they are trying to change their stand. All their State Finance Ministers support it, but the party, which is an opportunist party, opposes it,” he said. Asserting that the slowdown in the wake of the two initiatives is just 'transient', with some of the latest data already suggesting that a rebound of the economy was underway, Jaitley dismissed the critics as people who 'don't see beyond their nose' and are plagued by ‘immaturity’.
Without directly confronting the likes of Sinha and Shourie, he spoke of some critics who ‘for some reasons (are) not very happy today’, adding their unhappiness was not because of any ideological reasons ‘but for reasons that I have already expressed myself in India’. When asked if GST and demonetisation could haunt BJP in the upcoming Gujarat elections with the Congress making it a major poll issue, Jaitley quipped that Uttar Pradesh has already demonstrated popular support for demonetisation. “When results of Gujarat election are announced, it will become clear who has the backing of people. Uttar Pradesh election was held after demonetisation, we have seen the results.”
Jaitley, who also visited New York and Boston before arriving in Washington for the Fund-Bank meetings, spoke of the ‘great interest about India in the US and among its investors’, adding: “Both those inside the Government and the US companies have shown great interest in investing in India now.”
“You have Indians investing in the US, you have US companies investing in India. And, in November, a large contingent of US corporates are coming to India to invest,” he said. Jaitley, who held meetings with US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, called the India-US relationship a strategic one that is bound to be further consolidated.
India happens to be among the largest recipients of foreign direct investment from the US, and the expansion of cooperation in defence and aviation sectors has the potential to raise bilateral trade to a soaring level, he said in the context of projections that it could touch the level of $500 billion annually.