Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, has spoken out against the way his party has weakened the economy of India. According to him, many leaders in the party know that the economy is in a downward spiral, but refuse to speak up because of fear, as he writes in a column in The Indian Express.
The article is titled ‘I need to speak up now’, where Sinha said that demonetisation proved to be an “unmitigated economic disaster” and that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was “badly conceived and poorly implemented”. He also took a jibe at BJP President Amit Shah for citing ‘technical’ reasons for the recent fall in GDP. He added that since the BJP changed the method of calculating growth, the GDP is actually even lower than what it has been quoted to be.
He has also termed raids by Income Tax department, Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation “a new game to instil fear in the minds of people,” adding that the BJP protested against these when they were in the Opposition while now it has become an everyday thing.
“The prime minister claims that he has seen poverty from close quarters. His finance minister is working over-time to make sure that all Indians also see it from equally close quarters”, he concluded.
This comes as Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, on Wednesday said the government will take “additional measures” to boost the economy, to which Sinha has said, “We are waiting with bated breath.”
