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P Chidambaram slams handling of economy, BJP hits back at UPA
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Chidambaram in the INX Media money-laundering case; he spent 106 days in custody, including in Tihar jail.
A day after being released on bail, former finance minister P Chidambaram on Thursday called the government an “incompetent manager” of the economy and criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “silence” on the slowdown.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Chidambaram in the INX Media money-laundering case; he spent 106 days in custody, including in Tihar jail.
Addressing a press conference at Congress headquarters in Delhi, he said nothing summed up the state of the economy better than the series of numbers, 8, 7, 6.6, 5.8, 5 and 4.5 — a reference to quarterly growth rates of the GDP in the last six quarters.
“The government is unable to look for the obvious clues because it is stubborn and mulish in defending its catastrophic mistakes such as demonetisation, flawed GST {Goods and Services Tax}, tax terrorism, regulatory overkill, protectionism, and centralised control of decision-making in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO),” Chidambaram alleged.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hit back at Chidambaram, accusing him of violating bail conditions, and said the case against him was essentially about corruption he was allegedly involved in as the finance minister. His bail conditions stipulated that he not speak about the case.
Earlier in the day, Chidambaram joined other Congress members in their protest against the steep hike in onion prices.
Later, at the press conference, Chidambaram alleged that Modi has been “unusually silent” on the economy. “He has left it to his ministers to indulge in bluff and bluster. The net result, as The Economist put it, is that the government has turned out to be an ‘incompetent manager’ of the economy,” he said, referring to an article in the October issue of the magazine.
However, the former finance minister refused to speak on the case pending against him though he made a brief reference to it in his opening statement.
“I am grateful for the clear and comprehensive order yesterday of the Supreme Court. The order will clear the many layers of dust that have unfortunately settled on our understanding of criminal law and the manner in which criminal law has been administered by our courts,” he said.
“In the last 106 days, I was strong in spirit and I have become stronger because my record as minister and my conscience are absolutely clear. Officers who have worked with me, business persons who have interacted with me and journalists who have observed me know that very well. My family trusts in God. We have total confidence that the courts will, ultimately, render justice.”
Asked about the repeated claims made by his lawyers that he had lost 5 kg of weight in prison, Chidambaram replied: “I was always strong in spirit, I am now stronger I think. But I have also become stronger in body. Let me give you a hint. Sleeping on a wooden board without a pillow strengthens your neck, spine and back. My spine is stronger, my neck is stronger and my head is stronger.”
“I am a better man,” was his reply to another question about his stay in jail.
Chidambaram said the prescription for improving the economy will be useless if the diagnosis is wrong. “Even seven months into the fiscal year, the BJP government believes the problems faced by the economy are cyclical. The government is wrong. It is wrong because it is clueless,” he said.
The Congress leader claimed that the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) dispensation lifted 140 million people out of poverty between 2004 and 2014, while the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has pushed millions of people below the poverty line since 2016.
“I believe the Congress and some other parties are better equipped to pull the economy out of the slowdown and push economic growth, but we have to wait for better times,” he said.
Asked about industrialist Rahul Bajaj’s claim that there is an atmosphere of fear in the country, Chidambaram said: ”There is complete fear everywhere. Every institution is gripped by fear and the media is no exception... Please shed fear, please speak truth to power,” he said.
Chidambaram began his press conference with a reference to Jammu and Kashmir. He said his first thoughts upon his release were with the Kashmiri people who “have been denied their basic freedoms” since August, when the Centre moved to divest the region of its special status under Article 370.
In his reaction to Chidambaram’s comments, Union minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters that the Congress leader had violated the bail condition on the very first day after his release.
“He has got to speak to the media after so many days and that is why he was taking out his anger on every subject. Some Congress leaders are in jail, some have just got out of jail, and some are on bail. The opposition party has become desperate. It is not that they were in jail for their role in freedom movement but due to criminal charges against them,” Javadekar said.
Invoking the Emergency imposed by the Congress government in 1975, he said the then Indira Gandhi government clamped down on the media while the Modi government had shared all information related to the situation in Jammu and Kashmir with Parliament. “The government has allowed journalists from India and abroad to travel to Kashmir. The incidents of stone-pelting have come down by more than half. Kashmir is now on path to progress,” Javadekar said.
Referring to Chidambaram’s attack on the government on the economic slowdown, he said low inflation and high growth in the economy had been the highlights of the Modi dispensation since 2014 while the opposite was true when the UPA was in charge.
