New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that he was misleading the electorate with “hollow claims” of success of various schemes and dubbed him as a “king of advertisement and villain of development”.
Addressing a press conference on the state of the economy, former finance minister P. Chidambaram said that Mr Modi would be the first Prime Minister whose legacy will be of a “job-destroying Prime Minister”.
Taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government, the Congress claimed that the slowdown in the economy was confirmed by household savings and private consumption data, household savings have declined from 20 per cent in FY14 to 17 per cent in FY18 while private consumption has also seen a recent decline according to the government’s own reports, he said.
In the high octane campaign for the Lok Sabha elections the Congress charged the BJP wuth skirting away from real issues.
Congress spokesman Jaiveer Shergill said, “The prime minister in his speeches is only talking about Pakistan because he has done no work in Hindustan. The reality of the BJP government’s five-year calendar is an expensive and empty cylinder. The Ujjwala scheme only filled ‘gas’ in Mr Modi’s speeches. Mr Modi only believes in ‘lights, camera but no action’.”
In a document released by the party on the ‘Modi-Jaitley Economic Model’ it charged the BJP of failing on most of the economic indices. Mr. Chidambaram after releasing the document said, “ PM Modi’s government has stalled India’s investment cycle. Average total investments under this government have seen an 8% decline versus the UPA I and II average. Manufacturing investments follow the same pattern.” He further added, “The trade outlook has been negative and portends a weak economy. Foreign investment inflows have been declining. The rupee fell to a historic low of 74/$. Demonetisation and GST broke the back of the economy, leading to a squeeze in exports”
