Congress leader Chidambaram says figures prove Cong right on note ban

NEW DELHI (TIP): Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said, June 1, the new GDP growth figures had proved the Congress and the opposition right about the consequences of demonetization with the growth taking a hit by 1.3 per cent. Former Finance Minister said the  Indian economy was rapidly declining and unless the government took corrective measures it would decline further.

“I don’t how long the government can fool itself and the people of the country. We have warned the government and are forewarning the people unless corrective measures are taken, the economy will go down even further,” Chidambaram said after the Central Statistical Office published new GDP numbers revealing a major slowdown.

Earlier in the day, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi attacked the government for sluggish economy and declining GDP. “Falling GDP, rising unemployment…Every other issue is manufactured to distract us from this fundamental failure,” Gandhi said in a veiled reference to vigilantism and cow slaughter ban debate as issues the government was using to deflect attention from its “failures”. Reacting to the CSO numbers later, Chidambaram said, “As we had predicted the economy has taken a big hit. By the new methodology of calculation, Gross Value Addition has declined from 7.9 per cent in 2015-16 to 6.6 per cent in 2016-17.”

The former FM said the economy was slowing down in the middle of 2016 and instead of taking corrective measures, the government came up with an “extraordinarily foolish measure of demonetization”.

“Demonetization set back the economy even further,” he said noting that all three indicators of a vibrant economy -investment to GDP ratio, credit growth and jobs created – were poor. Chidambaram said, “All is not well. We are not on the right course. Investments are declining. Credit growth is negative for most sectors and there are no jobs.”

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also described demonetization as a monumental failure and legalized plunder predicting a fall in GDP growth rate because of the move.