‘Govt clueless too’: Congress as ministers say no farmer, journo death data

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said in a tweet that it was “pretty ironic” that a government which has “no trouble inventing data for the UPA’s GDP numbers”, says it has no data on farmer suicides or on attacks on journalists

The Congress on Friday attacked the Narendra Modi government for not knowing how many farmers had committed suicide, or how many journalists had been attacked or killed since it came to power in 2014.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said in a tweet that it was “pretty ironic” that a government which has “no trouble inventing data for the UPA’s GDP numbers”, says it has no data on farmer suicides or on attacks on journalists. (HT Photo)

The responses by Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh and Information and Broadcasting minister Rajayavardhan Singh Rathore came in replies to parliamentary questions asked by Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi this week.

“Now government says it has no data on journalists killed, earlier they said they had no data on farmer suicides. Looks like this government is not only dataless but is also clueless,” senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said in a tweet.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said in a tweet that it was “pretty ironic” that a government which has “no trouble inventing data for the UPA’s GDP numbers”, says it has no data on farmer suicides or on attacks on journalists.

He was referring to the government last month lowering the country’s economic growth rate during the previous Congress-led UPA regime, shaving off over 1 percentage point from the only year when India posted double-digit GDP growth post liberalisation and from each of the three years with 9-plus per cent expansion.

Recalibrating data of past years using 2011-12 as the base year instead of 2004-05, the Central Statistics Office estimated that India’s GDP grew by 8.5 per cent in the financial year 2010-11 and not at 10.3 per cent as previously estimated. Similarly, 9.3 per cent growth rate each in 2005-06 and 2006-07 was lowered to 7.9 per cent and 8.1 per cent respectively, while 7.7 per cent rate was now estimated for 2007-08 instead of 9.8 per cent.

The move wwas vociferously opposed by the Congress which termed it “malicious and fraudulent jugglery” of GDP figures to hide the “enormous body blow” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance minister Arun Jaitley had caused to India’s economy.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had termed the release of the data, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections next year, a “classic” case where “the operation is successful but the patient is dead”. He had alleged the entire GDP back series data released by the Centre reflects the desperate attempt of a “defeatist Modi government” to undermine India’s growth story over the last 15 years.