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On Sitharaman’s ‘half-baked’ jibe, Chidambaram says thankfully none was over-cooked like…
At a BJP event in Mumbai on Thursday, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the economic policies of the Congress regime in 1991 were “aadhe-adhure” (half-baked), adding the economy was not opened in the right manner but according to the strictures imposed by the IMF.
Congress veteran P Chidambaram on Friday hit back at Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for her recent remarks on India's 1991 economic reforms when Manmohan Singh was the country’s finance minister.
Reacting to Sitharaman's comment that reforms under the Congress government then were “half- baked”, Chidambaram, also a former finance minister, thanked her for revealing “she took bakery and cooking courses in university”. He said that Singh thankfully did not serve over-cooked and unpalatable food like demonetisation and “savage taxes” on fuel – reforms introduced by the Narendra Modi government over the past few years.
“The FM is reported to have said that the 1991 reforms were ‘half-baked’. Thank God, Dr Manmohan Singh did not serve over-cooked and unpalatable food like demonetisation, multiple-rates GST and savage taxes on petrol and diesel,” Chidambaram tweeted.
While speaking at a BJP event in Mumbai on Thursday, Sitharaman said that the economic policies of the Congress regime in 1991 were “aadhe-adhure” (half-baked), adding the economy was not opened in the right manner but according to the strictures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“The UPA regime left the economy in a mess and India became part of fragile five,” she was quoted as saying by PTI.
Sitharaman further said that no economic progress took place in the country till the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power. She said under the Congress-led UPA government, the focus was only on making personal gains, while India's interests took a back seat.
On India surpassing Britain in becoming the fifth largest economy in the world, Sitharaman said the feat could have been achieved much earlier had it not been for the “imported philosophy of socialism” that relied upon centralised planning.
(With agency inputs)
