Charging the UPA Government with destroying all the robust parameters of the economy “transferred” to it by the BJP-led NDA Government in 2004, the BJP on Saturday reasoned that once this strong base was broken by a directionless “Economist Prime Minister” the policy paralysis and misrule quickly set in “leading” to price rise, higher unemployment and “the near destruction of all the engines of economy”.
Drawing a comparison of economy under the Vajpayee-led NDA Government and that in charge of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram, senior BJP leader Ravishankar Prasad said on Saturday that “the robust economy” inherited by the UPA was “systematically destroyed” by it in 10 years of its rule.
“When the NDA Government had assumed office in the year 1998, India’s growth rate was 4.8%. When it left office in May 2004 India was at a robust growth rate of 8.5%. This was achieved in spite of many inhibiting factors like Pokhran-II sanction, Kargil War, attack on Parliament, 2002 drought and other factors,” said Prasad while giving a powerpoint presentation of the economy here in the BJP office.
He said even Chidambaram was compelled to concede in the Economic Survey 2005 that the economy had registered a growth rate of 8.5% the highest in last 30 years. This economy was, however, systematically destroyed in its all dimensions, he maintained.
The BJP leader said his party would like Congress leaders to respond to these facts and quipped by saying that he hoped that Harvard educated Chidambaram “would not do a fake encounter with these facts.” Prasad said the growth rate in 2003-04 was 8.5 per cent which tumbled down to 4.6 per cent in 2013-14 and Industrial growth in 2003-04 was 7.32 per cent which came down to minus 2 during UPA rule 2013-14.
Similarly, the current account deficit (balance in export and import) which was surplus during NDA regime pegged at +2.7 during 2003-04 ran into deficit of minus 4.8 per cent and external debt of 112.7 billion dollars during the Vajpayee rule rose to 390 billion dollars during 2012-13. “Even the fiscal deficit of 5.2 per cent in 2012-13 and 4.6 per cent in 2013-14 could be achieved by hugely cutting planned expenditure of 90,000 crore in the respective Budget,” the BJP leader said.
Prasad said the UPA miserably failed in controlling price rise as the NDA left the office with consumer price index at 3.86 while the rate of inflation of the UPA Government rose from 3.9 per cent in 2004-05 to 8 per cent 2012-13 with an average of 7.93 per cent during the UPA regime. Prasad said this is after in 2009, Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had publically promised to control inflation in 100 days, “yet nothing meaningful could be done for nearly five years and the aam aadmi suffered the most because of complete indifference of the Government.”
In fact, the entire intention of the Congress-led UPA Government is seriously suspect in this connection as it was never interested in controlling price rise because of vested interest apart from gross mismanagement of our food economy, he said. “The biggest failure of the UPA Government with the critical state of economy because of gross mismanagement, with industrial production and manufacturing seriously crippled, it was no surprise that unemployment is seriously down. It is no surprise that UPA record at job creation has been extremely poor,” he said.
As per National Sample Survey Data, the number of jobs created between 1999-2000 and 2004-05 (6 years of NDA) was 6.07 crore while in between 2004-05 to 2011-12 (8 years of UPA) the total number of job created was 1.54 crore. He said a good number of jobs were created during the NDA regime in the manufacturing and services sector while the same has slump into minus in the UPA regime.
Prasad said all the data provided by the party were sourced from either Planning Commission reports or those from National Sample Survey and RBI’s handbook of statistics on Indian Economy for 2012-13.