Govt clueless on economy, PM left it to ministers to indulge in 'bluff and bluster': Chidambaram

NEW DELHI: Congress leader P Chidambaram in his first press meet after coming out of jail lashed out at the Modi government, calling it ‘clueless’ about the economy and alleged PM Modi had left it to his ministers to indulge in “bluff and bluster” on the state of economy.
Claiming that Modi has been ‘unusually silent’ on the economy, he told a news conference in New Delhi: “He has left it to his ministers to indulge in bluff and bluster. The net result, as ‘The Economist’ put it, is that the government has turned out to be an ‘incompetent manager’ of the economy.”

Referring to quarterly growth rates of GDP in the last six quarters, the ex-FM quipped: “Nothing sums up the state of the economy better than the series of numbers, 8, 7, 6.6, 5.8, 5 and 4.5.”

On the challenge to revive the economy, he said the prescription will be useless if the diagnosis is wrong. “Even after seven months into the fiscal year, the BJP government believes the problems faced by the economy are cyclical. The government is wrong. It is wrong because it is clueless.”

The government, he alleged, was unable to look for the obvious clues because it was “stubborn and mulish” in defending its “catastrophic mistakes” such as demonetisation, flawed GST, tax terrorism, regulatory overkill, protectionism, and centralised control of decision-making in the Prime Minister’s Office.