A resolution adopted by the CWC at its day-long meeting yesterday pointed out that in the past five months since the UF government came to power, industrial growth had declined and the whole fiscal discipline became extremely week. Performance of exports also suffered serious fall.
Even the distribution of available resources was being done in an ad hoc manner. As a result, prospects of foreign investment had become uncertain. The whole economic management lacked direction.
It is moving like a rudderless ship, the resolution said.
The CWC conceded that it had not initially expected that the UF government would tackle the economic issue in a serious manner as it was not a cohesive group. It was constituted of various groups having different ideologies.
But what was really shocking was that the government did not show even a semblance of collective responsibility. In many cases, ministers have given statements against the government policies and criticised them in public, the resolution said.
Former finance minister Manmohan Singh and former external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee played a major role in highlighting the UF governments economic failures at yesterdays meeting.
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Manmohan Singh, who was recently appointed a general secretary of the AICC in charge of monitoring of the UF governments performance, explained at length how the economy was slipping.
Upto September end, the rate of growth of exports had come down from 26 per cent earlier to just 9 per cent, he pointed out. This had to be viewed in the context of a vissible slideback on all spheres. Singh quoted figures to prove his point. The general atmosphere of uncertainty had been reflected in the slackening of the stock market and the investment climate, the former finance minister said. He said there was no fresh foreign investment commitment in the past few months.
After the projections by the two former finance ministers, the meeting decided to incorporate the points in the resolution. By far, this is the bitterest criticism of the UF governments economic performance by the Congress.