Quoting Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu, who was speaking at a programme in Mumbai, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said, "Domestic problems rather than the global economy's woes explain much of the slowdown. It is not responsible for us to shy away from that fact. We owe it our country to point out to that fact."
She asked Mukherjee if he disagrees with Basu and also with the latest Index of Industrial Production (IIP) figures which stand at 0.1 per cent for April.
"Will you deny this too? Who will take responsibility for the IIP coming to zero... As a fig leaf you have 0.1 IIP. The economy is in a shambles there is no doubt about it," she said.
Quoting further from Basu's presentation, the BJP spokesperson said India is going through a "spiral of despair" and it is not clear what might "break" it.
"That means there is directionless, lack of leadership in the government. This is what BJP has been saying," Sitharaman said, adding that the government owes it to the people to give a clear explanation as to what steps it is going to take to bring the country out of this spiral of despair.
Basu had also said that the "economic paralysis" in the country is due to what is happening in the country and not due to the global economic slowdown.