In a data-driven response to the Opposition during budget debate in Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said his government had made the journey from ‘policy paralysis to structural reforms’ and thus India was one of the bright spots in the world economy today and no more in the ‘fragile five’.

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Tearing into the opposition on its claims over employment, agriculture and education, the FM said these problems were not created in the past 4-5 years. “What Congress could not achieve in 55 years of rule, it is asking us to deal in 4-5 years,” he said, adding “data speaks for itself”.

The finance minister focussed a large part of his speech in directly responding to former finance minister P.Chidambaram’s questions on the budget and said during the United Progressive Alliance term between 2004-2014, India had a ‘bad doctor”. This was in response to Chidambaram’s quip on Economic Survey that “Dr Arvind Subramanian has been a good doctor since his appointment as the CEA in October 2014. The NDA government has been a terrible patient.”

To Chidambaram’s 12 questions on economy, Jaitley said the person who mooted the idea of 25% corporate tax is now questioning it.

Dwelling on the flagship schemes such as MGNREGA and Right to Food, Jaitley said his government had increased the budgetary outlay to these schemes. Jaitley sought to highlight that while the NDA government has spent more than the budgetary estimates, it also maintained fiscal deficit at the same time.

He also reeled out data on Gross Domestic Product, Current Account Deficit during the NDA term, comparing it with growth figures in UPA’s last three years.  “GDP growth in 2012-13 was 5.3% and 6.3% in the following year under the UPA. This has considerably risen to 5.7% per cent in one quarter under BJP.”

He accused the Congress of changing its stance on direct tax code, GST and even corporate tax.

CHALLENGING OPPN

  • Tearing into the Opposition on its claims over employment, agriculture and education, the finance minister said these problems were not created in past 4-5 years  
  • Jaitley focused a large part of his speech directly responding to ex-finance minister P Chidambaram’s questions on Budget