Issue white paper on economy: Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma

BHUBANESWAR: Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Monday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come out with a white paper on the health of the country’s economy.Hitting out at Modi for making a mess of the economy, Sharma said Modi has failed on all fronts and has not been able to implement a single promise he had made before the 2014 election.“Though the economy is in a bad shape, the Prime Minister is trying to paint a rosy picture by falsifying facts. We demand that Modi should come out with a white paper on the economy,” the deputy leader of Rajya Sabha told a presser here.

Accusing Modi of betraying the mandate of the people, Sharma said the promises of two crore jobs every year, women security and a robust economy are yet to be fulfilled.Disputing the claim on Gross Domestic Product growth, Sharma said the GDP has fallen by two pc (about `3 lakh crore) due to demonetisation. The NDA Government has changed the old methodology to project a higher growth while in real terms it is only 5 pc against its claim of 7.2 pc and demanded the Government to make public GDP numbers of the last 10 years as per old formula.

Claiming that the national investment rate has fallen by 7 pc, Sharma said it was 33 pc when UPA left. Now, it is at 26 pc.He was equally unsparing towards Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for the poor economic growth leading to large scale migration of people to the states in search of job.