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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Sunday accused Finance Minister P Chidambaram of "running the economy to the ground" and said he will be remembered as a "spoiler" even as an 18-point questionnaire was posed to him on price rise, economic growth and job fronts.
Sinha, who was finance minister during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rule, claimed that the high economic growth rate witnessed in the first four years of UPA-I (2004-2007) was largely on account of measures initiated by the NDA government and not because of any steps taken by UPA governments.
"The fact of the matter is Chidambaram that you will be remembered by history as a spoiler, as someone who specialises in sub five per cent growth rate, for your hubris and for your baseless tall claims which you do not tire of making even today. Your words and statements have lost all credibility," Sinha said.
"You really harvested what was sown by us," he said. "Is it fact that after 10 years of misrule by the UPA government economic growth rate has once again slowed down drastically. The gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate for seven consecutive quarters has been below five per cent?" he asked. He said the GDP growth rate has registered a mere 4.7 per cent in October-December quarter of 2013-14. Manufacturing and mining registered a decline of 1.9 per cent and 1.6 per cent during the quarter, he said further.
Sinha said these numbers would have been worse but for 7 per cent increase in the personal, community and social services category "reflecting irresponsible government spending rather than real economic expansion".
