The Congress Sunday launched a scathing attack on the Centre over the falling rupee and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "monumental mismanagement" of the economy and delivering blows to it. The opposition party said in 2014, Modi had promised to strengthen the rupee if he became prime minister and said he would bring it to the level of 40 per dollar.
Addressing a press conference at the party office here, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma pointed out that the rupee had, on more than one occasion, crossed 74 to a dollar, whereas the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had left it at 59 to a dollar.
"There has been a monumental mismanagement of the Indian economy under the BJP-led NDA government. They have been busy, the prime minister in particular and his Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, either making false claims, or embellishing and manufacturing numbers just to mislead the people," he said.
A nation could not have a sound economy if it was not attracting investments, the Congress leader said.
On demonetisation, Sharma said Modi's arbitrary and reckless decision wiped off more than 90 per cent of the currency in circulation in one stroke, destroyed not only factories but crores of jobs and soon after that, there was a hasty imposition of a flawed Goods and Services Tax (GST).
"If you put all that together, you will realise that this is the highest GST and the most complex one when it comes to compliance, which has been thrust on the country. So, these are the blows Modi has delivered," he said.
The Congress leader took a dig at the finance minister by describing him as a blog writer rather than being an efficient minister and said the Centre attributed the slowing down of the economy, the falling rupee and all such things to global factors.
But strangely, these factors were only evident in India and not other economies of Asia which were not affected by those, he said. JTR RC
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com