PM Modi, FM Sitharaman clueless about economy: Congress

“We have already pointed that the very precarious situation in the Indian economy, which is moved from the session to a crisis mode. But the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister are oblivious. After the big mandate the BJP received, it was expected the Prime Minister will pay attention to the real issues, that country is confronted with, particularly the agrarian distress, the state of the economy, the crash in the production, collapse of demand, and huge number of lay-offs and retrenchments”, said senior Congress leader Anand Sharma while addressing mediapersons at AICC headquarters.

Attacking Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, he said ,“ I can only say that our sympathies are with the country, that we have Finance Minister who is clueless, who does not understand the E for Economics or F for Finance. Instead of addressing the grim situation confronting Indian economy, she is blatantly allowing patronage and promotion of crony capitalism, huge tax cut to the richest people, no relief for poor and the misuse of authority and the government agencies.”

Sharma also said that if the Finance Minister has the interest of the Indian economy “close to her heart” and understands the gravity of the crisis, she should respond.”

Referring to the recent data from various sectors, Mr Sharma said all the areas are in difficult situation, especially the automobile sector.

“Yesterday the numbers have come on automobile sector. In passenger vehicles, 23. 7 per cent is the fall in September”, he said and added that “on the capital goods formation, the investments which have been made to create capital, or fixed capital formation, have been hovering around zero for most of the time of this government. Now it has collapsed. The latest was minus 21 percent which is the lowest since the year 2012”.

He also pointed out that growth in the manufacturing sector hit a five year low with a contraction of minus 1.2 per cent.

“Manufacturing should have been in positive double digit. Any fall in manufacturing is a matter of concern because it directly related to factory production and job losses. A large number of factories are shutting down”, he said.

He alleged that government has failed to deliver, adding that “despite the fact that global commodity prices had fallen from 2014 onwards, especially the petroleum prices, the minimum saving, or windfall gain of this government from 2014 onwards, only on petroleum products, is roughly 7.5 billion dollars per annum, that is close to 3 lakh crore. Despite that, this government is guilty of monumental mismanagement of the Indian economy”.

He also charged the Narendra modi Government of working with a spirit of political vendetta. Mr sharma alleged that the government is obsessed with targeting its political opponents.

“It works with vendetta in mind, selectively identifying and targeting political opponents, it’s not only the Congress and its leaders. In recent years, it goes across political parties, especially those parties which are opposed to them, whether it is TMC, TDP, BSP, or the SP… list is long.

But when it comes to BJP, which itself is the richest political party in the world, the filings before the Election Commission of the electoral bonds show that almost 99 per cent of the electoral bonds have gone to the BJP. The amount that the BJP has spent, in addition to that which has been spent on elections, would be Rs 40,000 crore or more than that. From where has that money come? And now the BJP has stooped to new low, using the agencies to targeting the salaried employees of the largest opposition party”, Sharma charged.

Warning the government over its targeting of political opponents, he said,’’ “India, cannot be converted into a state where people are living in fear and insecurity. It cannot create a police state, surveillance state or the terror of raids only on political opponents.

If the BJP is confident of doing very well in the elections, I would like to ask , why you are indulging in this?’’

He also said that on one hand the government promotes crony capitalism while on the other hand it empties the country’s coffers, ruins the RBI’s contingency reserve.

‘’These crisis have been created by the government,’’he said.

.“I would like to ask a question. Who’s the treasurer of the BJP, the government should disclose, and is there conflict of interest somewhere there? After all, BJP is a political party, registered with the Election Commission. We are rule based and rule governed country. The same rules applied to the BJP also. They are not above the law of the land, if they think they are”, he said.