Former Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and termed 'Niti Aayog' as 'worthless body' as the Centre on Wenesday slashes UPA-era growth rate.
Former Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and termed 'Niti Aayog' as 'worthless body' as the Centre on Wenesday slashes UPA-era growth rate.
The government lowered the country's economic growth rate during the previous Congress-led UPA regime, shaving off over 1 percentage point from the only year when India posted double-digit GDP growth post liberalisation and from each of the three years with 9-plus percent expansion.
"Niti Aayog's revised GDP numbers are a joke. They are a bad joke. Actually, they are worse than a bad joke. The numbers are the result of a hatchet job. Now that Niti Aayog has done the hatchet job, it is time to wind up the utterly worthless body," said Chidambaram in a series of tweets.
Stating that the earlier numbers were calculated by the National Statistical Commission, Chidambaram questioned if the Commission been disbanded?
"Former Chief Statistician Pranab Sen is absolutely correct. Niti Aayog has nothing to do with tabulation of data. I wonder if Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar will agree to a debate the data than telling journalists that their questions are 'undeserving of an answer'," Chidambaram added.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala termed the step a "classic" case where "the operation is successful but the patient is dead".
"The entire GDP back series data released today reflects the desperate attempt of a defeatist Modi Government to undermine India's growth story over last 15 years. Modi Government and its puppet Niti Aayog want the people to believe that 2+2=8.
"Such is the gimmickry, jugglery, trickery and chicanery being sold as 'back series data'," he said in a statement.
In January 2015, the government moved to a new base year of 2011-12 from the earlier 2004-05 for national accounts. The base year of national accounts had been revised earlier in January 2010.
Recalibrating data of past years using 2011-12 as the base year instead of 2004-05, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) estimated that India's GDP grew by 8.5%in the financial year 2010-11 (April 2010 to March 2011) and not at 10.3% as previously estimated.
Similarly, 9.3%growth rate each in 2005-06 and 2006-07 was lowered to 7.9%and 8.1%respectively, while 7.7%rate was now estimated for 2007-08 instead of 9.8%.
The revised growth numbers have been released ahead of the 2019 general elections.
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