In a scathing attack, the Congress on Thursday said the Modi government's three years in office were full of "distractions, propaganda, falsification of facts, intolerance, and betrayal" and demanded a White Paper on the economy.
The Congress said it will launch a nationwide campaign to inform people on how the union government will spend Rs 1,500 crore to mislead them about its performance through false publicity.
"It is a struggling and gasping economy. Firstly, on the Gross Domestic Product numbers, they changed the old methodology and thus there is a difference of two per cent. There is no economic growth. It is a flat growth," Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma told media while dwelling on "the failure of three years of BJP government at the Centre".
"We demand, and we challenge, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley -- as they celebrate the looting of the treasury to build a personality cult around one man -- to publish tomorrow (Friday) GDP numbers for the last 10 years, both as per the old and the new methodologies."
Sharma said it will help reveal the truth and show what the government is saying is false.
Taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party on its 2014 poll promise of generating two crore jobs every year if it came to power at the Centre, the Congress leader said the government should also make public the names, addresses and vocations of Indians who have been provided jobs in the three years of the National Democratic Alliance government.
Sharma said the government was embarking on a propaganda and publicity blitz -- a hallmark of the Modi government.
"Three years of this government is also marked by insults to political opponents, insulting all predecessors, questioning the wisdom of intellectuals, false claims, and betrayal," the Congress leader said.
He said there are also serious concerns on the internal security of the country.
"Our security is under grave threat. Modi's Pakistan policy has been a diplomatic disaster and we have asked him to have a clear roadmap on Pakistan. But there is no roadmap," said Sharma.
"When our Prime Minister goes to other countries, or when a Prime Minister of another country comes here, he is given a Guard of Honour. But when Modi went to Lahore in December 2015, the chiefs of Pakistan Army, Navy and Air Force did not offer him a Guard of Honour," Sharma said.
"He became the first Indian Prime Minister not to be given a Guard of Honour. But he is unapologetic since he is carried away by the propaganda of his party, his government and the ministers, most of whom are rubber stamps and have nothing much to do," the Congress leader added.
Sharma said there is a fall of at least 8 percentage points in national investment rate. "How can an economy grow? Despite tall claims on financial inclusion and Jan-Dhan Yojana, savings rate has fallen by 2 percentage points in three years," he said.
He said bank credit off-take is also in the negative. "It has continuously been declining. It has fallen by 7 percentage points. Gross capital formation has gone down for the first time below zero and it was minus 3 per cent last year."
The Congress leader said: "Manufacturing of numbers and falsification of facts is not going to work anymore. Truth cannot be altered; it will triumph."
--IANS
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