The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday lashed out at the Congress-led UPA Government over the deteriorating condition of the Indian economy, saying the nation is paying the price because of the Centre's mismanagement under an economist Prime Minister.
BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar alleged that Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has no rosy picture to paint, and has miserably failed in managing the economy.
Javadekar on his part lauded former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, saying he took the Indian economy to 8.4 percent growth because of his visionary leadership.
"Under the economist Prime Minister, UPA has taken back the economy in the decade of 90s. Now, the Congress is taking a debate on the level of giving statistics. Let me put one statistics and let them answer- whether it is true or not that when Atalji took over in1998, the GDP growth rate was 4.8 percent. With his visionary leadership despite so many crisis every year, he took it to 8.4 percent and handed over a very sound economy to UPA," said Javadekar.
"So, the UPA inherited 8.4 percent and then UPA now has brought it down to again 4.8 percent; has taken the economy back to 1998. So, this is what the Congress has done and the fiscal deficit is rising, rupee is depreciating, costs are increasing everyday and so the economy is let loose. This is what we are into. So, we are saying that economy has been mismanaged and people are paying the price for their (UPA) mismanagement," he added.
Chidambaram earlier in the day said that the Indian economy is likely to grow at 6 percent or slightly more for the current fiscal year to March 2014.
Chidambaram, who was addressing a press conference after the Reserve Bank of India last night announced steps to support the rupee, said the RBI's moves were aimed at quelling excessive speculation and volatility in the foreign exchange market and should not be read as a prelude to policy rate changes.
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"These measures (RBI decisions) should not be read as prelude to any policy rate changes. This has nothing to do with upcoming policy review of RBI...I don't expect banks to increase interest rates as a result of yesterday's measures," he told a a press conference in Jaipur.
The RBI last night announced a slew of measures like raising cost of borrowing by banks by 2 per cent to 10.25 per cent and announcing sale of bonds worth Rs. 12,000 crore through open market operations to suck liquidity to check rupee slid, which had earlier in the month touched a all low of 61.21 to a dollar.