UPA indulging in untruths, says BJP

The BJP, commenting on the budget speech that summarised the UPA government’s achievements during its tenure, added that the government has failed on each of the seven objectives that it set for itself in 2004.

Former finance ministers of BJP, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, along with Rajya Sabha MP Arun Shourie, expressed serious concern at the scenario of runaway inflation that a likely over-13% budgetary deficit caused by wasteful, unproductive spending.

They also accused the government of indulging in untruths in claiming that the deficit would be around 6% as the prime minister’s economic advisory council (EAC) had said last month that it would be at least 8%. This was in fact likely to be over 10% and together with 3.5% of deficit from states, was likely to be above 13.5%, the highest ever.

“Far from placing the economy on a path of sustained growth of 7% to 8%, it is leaving the economy with a significant slowdown — a slowdown that started as soon as the momentum created by the NDA ran out; a slowdown that has been caused by its mismanagement, a mismanagement it is trying to cover up by invoking the international economic crisis,” the BJP said.

In this economic crisis, the elementary duty of the Government was to take strong and effective counter-measures but it has completely abandoned its responsibilities and wasted money in unproductive expenditure instead of using it to provide stimulus to economy and create employment, BJP said.