Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Thursday criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party government for the state of the economy, and accused BJP leaders of not taking into account the suffering of people.
“The state of the economy in the country is bad,” she tweeted. “The service sector has fallen flat. Employment is decreasing. Those ruling are busy in themselves and the people are suffering on every front.”
The Congress leader’s statement came on a day Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reviewed the state of the economy, including the stress in the financial sector, at a meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council, which is the apex body of sectoral regulators, PTI reported. “The meeting was very constructive and it took stock of entire financial system and other issues,” said Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar.
The meeting and Gandhi’s statement came a day after the government set up a Rs 25,000-crore fund for stalled housing projects. The government has said the move “will help relieve financial stress faced by large number of middle-class homebuyers who have invested their hard-earned money”.
Indian economic growth slipped to a six-year low of 5% during the first quarter of 2019-’20 financial year. Last week, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy said India’s unemployment rate rose to 8.48% of the labour force in October. This is the highest rate of unemployment since August 2016. Besides, the output of eight core industrial sectors declined 5.2% in September, which is the worst decline in 14 years for the month of September.
Meanwhile, Priyanka Gandhi also mocked Narendra Modi’s “Howdy, Modi” rally in the United States in September, pointing out that the Trump administration had reduced H1-B visas for Indians despite the prime minister’s efforts.
“The question that everyone should ask the BJP government is that who is being benefited during their tenure,” she tweeted. “The prime minister went to the United States and held his ‘Howdy Mody’ event but America increased the number of rejections of HB1 visas for those Indians wanting to work there.”
A study by the National Foundation for American Policy, a think-tank, based on data received from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said that denial rates for H-1B visas, popular among Indian IT professionals, has increased significantly from just 6% in 2015 to 24% in the third quarter of the current fiscal.
Also read: Nervous Indians are frantically searching for ‘H-1B visa’ and ‘work visa’ on a US job portal
Follow Hard Times, our series on the state of the Indian economy.
Now, follow and debate the day’s most significant stories on Scroll Exchange.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!