The BJP’s senior leader Yashwant Sinha hit the BJP-led government once again on Thursday by evidently absolving the previous Congress-led UPA government for a slowdown in growth. Recently, he ignited a political firestorm with a column criticising the government’s economic policy.
“The economy is in decline. We can’t blame the previous government, we had plenty of time and chances,” said Sinha. When asked about his remarks on the column he wrote that appeared on Wednesday, Sinha said the economy has been on the downswing for a while now, but “I did not speak”.
“I am not talking just based on one-quarter’s numbers, the economy has been falling for six straight quarters,” said Sinha. The main culprit that made the situation bad and near-catastrophic is demonetization, he said. Sinha had called the move “an unmitigated economic disaster” in his column.
“The biggest culprit for growth slowing is the note ban. A thorough study should have been done on its effects on the economy, to jobs and it should have been introduced when the economy was in a healthy state, not in the manner it was introduced,” said Sinha.
He reiterated on Thursday that the rollout of GST was “badly conceived and poorly implemented”. “After the demonetization shocker, GST was another one. What was the need to hurry? They could have launched it in October,” said Sinha.
Sinha slammed the government’s economic policies to shreds and blasted finance minister Arun Jaitley. “Private investment has shrunk as never before in two decades, industrial production has all but collapsed, agriculture is in distress, construction industry, a big employer of the workforce, is in the doldrums, the rest of the service sector is also in the slow lane, exports have dwindled, sector after sector of the economy is in distress, demonetisation has proved to be an unmitigated economic disaster, a badly conceived and poorly implemented GST has played havoc with businesses and sunk many of them and countless millions have lost their jobs with hardly any new opportunities coming the way of the new entrants to the labour market,” wrote Sinha.
A stunned BJP responded by launching Yashwant’s son, Union Minister Jayant Sinha. Jayant on Thursday said in an article published in TOI that conclusion has been drawn from limited facts and the points on fundamental structural reforms transforming the economy were missed. “We are creating a robust new economy that will power long-term growth and job creation”.
Sinha had said, “I shall be failing in my national duty if I did not speak up even now against the mess the finance minister (Jaitley) has made of the economy.”
