Nand Kishore Singh, who recently quit the Janata Dal (U) to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Monday called the two stints of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government "a lost decade". "It was a lost decade. Growth has fallen to sub-five per cent," Singh said at Growth Net, an event that brought together various experts on economy and development.
India's economic growth fell to 4.5 per cent in 2012-13, from 6.7 per cent in the previous financial year. The growth is projected to stand at 4.9 per cent in 2013-14 by advance estimates of the Central Statistics Office. Singh said the quality of the fiscal deficit was dubious, since it had been brought about by postponing expenditure.
The Centre was able to rein in fiscal deficit at 4.6 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product in the revised estimates of 2013-14 against the budget estimates of 4.8 per cent.
At the event, organised by the Ananta Centre and advisory firm Smadja and Smadja, the former bureaucrat said the UPA government had come out with various entitlement schemes like the right to education, right to employment, right to food. At this level of per capita income, no country had these entitlements.
Singh said that many of these laws needed to be re-written. "The next government faces these challenges. To restructure them would be a challenge even in the honeymoon period of the next government," he said.
He referred to a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, which pointed out that assets generated by an employment programme were not of good quality.
Similarly, the government providing food security without moving a huge quantity of food grains was a challenge.
For example, how to go about it through cash transfer in some cases would be a challenge, he added.
"I am not talking about a roll-back. I am really talking about restructuring," he clarified.
To a query on social media, he said the new age medium has indeed provided stability. Singh said had we been far more leveraged in the global financial crisis period, the impact would have been much sharper.
Singh, a former bureaucrat, severed ties with JD (U) and joined the BJP on Saturday.
'BJP sidelining seniors'
The Congress on Monday alleged the Bharatiya Janata Party had become a one-man party and Narendra Modi was forcing seniors like Jaswant Singh to quit party. Congress spokesperson Shobha Oza charged Modi with "sidelining senior leaders in his party the way he had sidelined Muslims in his home state of Gujarat".
Singh is not the first senior BJP leader to speak out against the highhandedness of the party leadership. Senior leader Sushma Swaraj had also gone public with her dissent over the shabby treatment meted out to Singh.
Ozha said, "Sushma Swaraj has become the Leader of Opposition in her own party."
Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh too questioned Modi's stature in the BJP and tweeted: "Is Modi bigger than BJP and RSS?" Questioning the denial of ticket to Singh, Digvijay said, "If there is a 'Modi wave' in the country then why BJP is engineering defections and giving seats to defectors?"
Jaswant Singh had been denied the Barmer seat, which was instead given to Col Sonaram Choudhary, a recent entrant to the BJP from the Congress camp.
