Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday referred to GDP as “Gross Divisive Politics”, a day after India said the growth in its Gross Domestic Product was expected to slow down to 6.5% in 2017-’18. The GDP had grown at 7.1% during the 2016-’17 financial year.
In a post on Twitter, Gandhi criticised the state of the economy, pointing out that new investments in the country were at a 13-year low, credit growth was at its lowest in over six decades and creation of jobs was at its lowest in eight years.
He said this was the result of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s “genius” combined with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Gross Divisive Politics”. Gandhi further said that this had led India to an eight-year-high fiscal deficit.
His party, meanwhile, said in a statement that demonetisation and a flawed Goods and Services Tax were “squarely responsible” for the economic slowdown. The Congress said that “an arrogant Prime Minister” and “a failed Finance Minister” were hellbent on “ignoring economic wisdom” and had dealt a “catastrophic blow to India’s growth story”.
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