New Delhi: Attacking the Centre over its handling of the economy, the Congress on Saturday asked it to pluck up courage to go for bold reforms, saying the party will engage with the government if it means business.
“Once the economy stabilised as I believe it had by June 2014, the government should have then given the economy a big push by going for bold structural reforms, taken the difficult the decisions which were pending because UPA did not have absolute majority in the Lok Sabha,” former finance minister P Chidambaram told reporters.
“Now this government has 282 or may be 283 (seats) in the Lok Sabha, it should pick up the courage and take up bold structural reform and in doing so, it must engage the opposition. The Congress party is willing to engage if the government means business,” Mr chidambaram, who has been nominated from Maharashtra by the party for Rajay Sabha polls, said.
On the GST, he said, the government has failed to engage the Congress party over the three principal objections raised by it. Mr Chidambaram also wondered whether the Modi government “deserves” Mr Raghuram Rajan, describing him as “one of the most outstanding economists in the world, amid an unrelenting attack by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy against the RBI Governor.
Meanwhile, Chidambaram has been nominated by Congress from Maharashtra for the biennial elections to Rajya Sabha while senior leaders Kapil Sibal and Jairam Ramesh have been named from Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.
