‘BJP government plunged nation into crisis’

The Congress party on Friday said the economy of the country has plunged into a “deep crisis” under the 21 months of the Modi government which has no idea of how to revive it.

Accusing the Modi government of diverting from the real issues by making provocative statements and creating controversies, AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said slogans like “Make in India, Digital India, Skill India have turned out to be hallow slogans in order to befool people by diverting their attention.”

He said that while the country’s GDP slowed to 7.3 per cent in the third quarter from the revised 7.7 per cent in the preceding September quarter, 29 state-owned banks wrote off a total of Rs 1.14 lakh crore of bad debts between financial years 2013 and 2015. And the rupee which was at Rs 58.5 to the dollar when Mr Narendra Modi took charge, has slid to Rs 68.38 to the dollar and continues to fall precipitously, a fall of 17 per cent since, he said.

The index of industrial production recorded a negative 3.2 and the Sensex has given a thumbs down — from 24,716 to 22,951 — to Prime Minister Modi’s 21-month-rule. “Over 21 months later, Modi has steered the Indian economy into a crisis and now, with the market sentiment down, the Sensex and Nifty are starting down at a bear market,” Mr Singhvi told reporters.

While Rs 27,000 crore was pulled out of Indian equities in the month of February, the Sensex and Nifty closed at their lowest level, wiping out investors wealth worth of Rs 3 lakh crore with 500 stocks hitting their lowest levels.” PM Modi has systematically undermined all the good work done by the previous UPA government led by Dr Manmohan Singh,” he said.

Responding to a question that in the backdrop of economic crises, whenever there is an effort by the BJP to change the national narrative into some kind of communal rhetoric by invocation of Ishrat Jahan encounter and how the Congress used Ishrat Jahan to politically target Mr Modi, he said your question shows that this government is a master at the art of — diversions, digression, distraction — you use these three Ds, when you can’t fulfill your promises. You use three Ds when you know that what you are preaching is only a temporary transient vote getting tactic, you can’t achieve. “

“You (BJP and the goverment) create one conflagration one day in one part of the country — another conflagration in another part of the country. You have these MPs, MLAs and ministers and forget the Aam BJP ‘Karyakarta’, regularly almost every week of this 21-month-period have made shockingly divisive anti-national, anti-India diversity statements. Why is it That is the only way to divert, digress and distract,’ Mr Singhvi said.