 "P Chidambaram")
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday termed, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's claim on inflation during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, as voodoo statistics.
"FM said UPA bequeathed double digit inflation. In June 2014 CPI (Consumer Price Index) was 6.77 and WPI (Wholesale Price Index) was 5.66. Did FM add the two numbers? Voodoo statistics!" Chidambaram tweeted.
Chidambaram was the finance minister in the Congress-led UPA government in 2014 when it lost power to the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime.
On Thursday, Jaitley had rebutted the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's assertion that the NDA government has failed to control inflation, especially the price of dal, saying the Narendra Modi government had brought down the high inflation rate prevailing during the previous regime.
Jaitley said the last two years of UPA government had double digit price rise, with CPI inflation at 10.2 per cent in 2012-13.
It was near 9.5 per cent when BJP took over and had been brought down to 5.77 per cent, Jaitley had said.
"We have been able to keep things under control despite two years of bad monsoon which resulted in higher food inflation," Jaitley had said.
The Congress sources said the party MPs in the two Houses will raise the issue of "wrong figures" provided by Jaitley on the floor of parliament.
