The BJP on Thursday fielded Union Minister Jayant Sinha to defend the party and government against the criticism from his father Yashwant Sinha, himself a party veteran and former Union finance minister.
Writing in The Times of India , the younger Sinha, the Minister of State for Civil Aviation, said the criticism against the economy was based on a set of narrow facts.
Responding to the article, the Congress said the Union Minister’s defence sounded like a statement from the Press Information Bureau (the government’s official press agency), and asked the Centre to come out of its denial mode.
“He (Jayant Sinha) should know that administrative changes are not structural reforms. If Jayant Sinha is right, why is the outcome a steady decline in GDP growth over five quarters? If Jayant Sinha is right, why is there no increase in private investment? If Jayant Sinha is right, why is credit growth to industry negative? If Jayant Sinha is right, why is there poor demand for electricity and plant load factor at 50-60 per cent?” asked P Chidambaram, senior Congress leader and former FM.
Meanwhile, Yashwant Sinha maintained his stand in an interview to new agency ANI . “During the UPA regime, we used to ask the then government to end the economic paralysis by resuming some of the paused projects and improve the condition of banks. So, I had expected that we would follow the same when our government comes to power. We progressed a bit, but the government apparently did not work on these projects with the speed that was expected. So, after being in the government for last 40 months, we can’t blame the previous government,” Sinha said.
Congress’ deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma said it was a matter of grave concern that the economy is fast slipping into deep recession, with no hope of recovery in the foreseeable future. “Prime Minister Modi has betrayed the youth. A government that had promised ten million jobs a year has not only failed to create jobs but is responsible for destroying tens of millions of jobs by its irresponsible and wrong policies and decisions. A sense of disappointment and despondency has overwhelmed the youth,” he claimed.
He said Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley remain in denial and are “clueless” on addressing the crisis of their own making. “They are guilty of monumental mismanagement of Indian Economy. PM Modi is singularly responsible for inflicting grave damage on the economy by his reckless decisions including demonetisation and hasty imposition of a flawed GST. The disastrous implementation has hurt the industry, small entrepreneurs and traders,” he said.