Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Ministers should speak facts about the economy in the Delhi polls instead of “abuse and rhetoric” while former Congress president Rahul Gandhi attacked Mr. Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over the state of the economy.
“Modi and his dream team of economic advisers have literally turned the economy around. Earlier: GDP: 7.5%, inflation: 3.5%. Now: GDP: 3.5%, inflation: 7.5%. The PM and FM have absolutely no idea what to do next,” Mr. Gandhi said in a tweet.
In a series of tweets, Mr. Chidambaram listed out three things that the people of Delhi would like to here from the Prime Minister and his Ministers who, he claimed, are cut off from the people.
“Here are three things they can speak about in the Delhi elections: the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has increased from 2% in January 2019 to 7.35% in December 2019. 2) Tax revenues will fall short of Budget estimates by ₹2.5 lakh crore in 2019-20. 3) There will be sharp expenditure cuts in programmes meant for the SCs, STs, OBCs, minorities and women and children,” he said.
In a separate set of tweets, the former Finance Minister asked why the Prime Minister had not admonished his party leaders for using abusive language.
“The language used by Minister Anurag Thakur, BJP MP Parvesh Verma, BJP Bengal president Dilip Ghosh and BJP Karnataka Minister CT Ravi is appalling. It seems that, faced with imminent defeat in the Delhi elections, the BJP leaders have bid goodbye to civilised political discourse. Why are the PM and the BJP president not admonishing these leaders?” he asked.
The former Finance Minister also attacked the Union government for ‘hounding’ bankers.
“The government has suddenly discovered that “loans granted after appropriate appraisal can turn out to be non-performing. How many upright bankers were investigated, humiliated and even arrested in the last six years?” he asked.
“No banker wants to lend. That is the hard truth. Nothing that the BJP government will do now — including ring fencing — will revive the culture of lending that has been practically destroyed.”
