Congress takes a dig at Union Finance Minister

Team Herald 

PANJIM: While Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is busy salvaging the sagging Indian economy and revising her July budget almost every fortnight, the Congress leaders in Goa, including the All India Congress Committee Spokesperson Gourav Vallabh took a dig that we are now getting budget in installments as if we are buying white goods product in the market. 

The Congress leaders were deliberating on “Current State of Indian Economy”. 

Former chief minister Pratapsingh Rane also joined the forum mid-way, much to the surprise of many present at the Goa Chambers of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) hall. However, there was a conspicuous absence of yet another former chief minister and Congress Legislature Party leader Digambar Kamat.

Welcoming the keynote speaker Academician and AICC Spokesperson Gourav, President of Goa Pradesh Congress Committee Girish Chodankar said that “data manipulation by the present Central government is being done just to divert the attention of the common people. But at the same time the investors’ confidence also gets shattered as they are all well aware of the situation. Unless we stop giving a rosy picture by manipulating the data, the economy cannot sustain.”

Researcher and Economist Prassana Utagi while addressing the gathering expressed concern over Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant’s utterance that Goa will receive 26 per cent share of the Goods and Services Taxes (GST). 

“This is not for the first time that we are facing an economic crisis. The story is why the difference between earlier and present one. The problem is that in this phase both politics is mixed with economy and vice versa.”

Prof Gourav in his keynote address said that, “I am told to speak on economic crisis which I will not call as a crisis. It is a manmade disaster. Crises are different from disasters. We have two sectors in the economy, informal and formal.  Both the sectors are responsible for this disaster. In the informal sector people lost their jobs due to demonetisation. You must learn from Prime Minister Narendra Modi how to turn good work into bad and vice versa. Demonetisation was implemented smoothly which adversely affected our economy. As a Chief Minister of Gujarat Modi always used to oppose GST and we supported him because it was our baby but in the manner in which was implemented in the middle of the night was an example of how to kill a good idea. The government has fired two bullets in the chest of the economy.”

Prof Gourav added that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had predicted that there will be a dip of two per cent in the GDP in the economy. 

“But Dr Singh was slightly wrong as the GDP fell by 4.5 per cent. Dr Singh was magnanimous by giving sentiments in the economy a room to play. We can only expect now blaming other people for their (present Union government) for their wrong doings.”

AICC Secretary Dr A Chellkumar and an MP warned that the NDA government will totally derail the economy and will create a disaster for the country.