Congress: Govt has ‘proud privilege’ of shrinking economy

P Chidambaram (Files)

As PM Narendra Modi completes 40 months in office, the Congress on Monday said his government has proved that it cannot “govern this country.” And while the BJP’s national executive in Delhi hailed the government’s economic achievements, the Congress said it has the “proud privilege of actually shrinking the economy.”

Former Finance minister P Chidambaram criticised the BJP for its resolution backing demonetisation and implementation of GST. The BJP national executive’s “support to demonetisation is utter contempt of public opinion”, he said. On GST, he tweeted that the party leaders “should talk to traders & businessmen in their own party”.

Party spokesperson Manish Tewari said the essence of 40 months of the government can be summed up in one sentence: “That the NDA-BJP government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not know how to govern this country”.

He said, “Every government can be benchmarked on five standards… social cohesion, political stability, internal security, economic development and international relations. And on all these five benchmarks this government has proven to be an utter failure.”

The Modi government, Tewari said, “also has the proud privilege of actually shrinking the Indian economy. No government in the past 70 years has shrunk the economic pie as this government has done in the past 40 months.”