Govt has no strategy to deal with coronavirus pandemic, revive economy, says Congress

The Congress Friday hit out at the Modi government alleging it has no strategy to fight the coronavirus pandemic or revive the economy and is instead busy in building narratives which run counter to the reality.

Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said the government instead of building "false narratives" should get down to doing the right things that will increase consumption, investment and jobs.

Citing grim International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections, she alleged India will become the "fastest falling economy" from being the fastest growing economy.

She also cited the IMF projections of 10.3 per cent contraction in India's GDP, which is the highest in the world after the UK's 9.8 per cent.

"India from being the fastest growing economy would be the fastest falling economy in the world," she said.

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Shrinate also said that a country like Bangladesh, whose per capita GDP used to be 25 per cent less that of India's five years ago, now has the per capita GDP of 1,888 against India's 1,876.

Instead of taking a cue from Bangladesh in improving India's GDP, she said, the entire BJP and its leaders are busy building a narrative to negate this and claim that the purchasing parity of India is far more than that of Bangladesh.

“The intrinsic value of your currency is calculated by the purchasing power parity and not the per capita GDP which is more in Bangladesh,” she said.

The Congress leader also pointed out that due to government policies, India did not benefit from the trade war between the USA and China and the three countries that benefitted most were Mexico, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

"We failed to take any advantage of that Trade war. We did not make any gains out of it, whereas, we were the fit and the right candidate to have got a lot of business from China, from the US. But, we failed to do so, because of all the misdirected policies of the Modi Government,” she claimed.

She also said that Bangladesh’s garment export with the US is USD 32 billion, while for India it is USD 8 billion.

Taking on the government over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, she said it has no strategy to fight the pandemic as India is number 2 in the world in terms of caseload and has a death rate twice that of Pakistan or Bangladesh and eight times that of Sri Lanka.

"It is absolutely certain that the Modi government has no cognisance, no strategy to fight the Corona pandemic, because under their watch we are number two as far as infections are concerned," she said.

Shrinate said while on one hand there is has been a "gross mismanagement" of the pandemic, on the other the Modi government has ensured that "the Indian economy has completely got ruined”.

“It is in complete shambles. Today, there is no demand, no consumption, no investment and hardly any jobs."

She said it is a cause of deep concern that the IMF revised its earlier forecast of 4.5 percent contraction in Indian economy and now says that it would contract by over 10 percent.

"It is a cause of deep concern because today Bangladesh has a higher per capita GDP and the government, instead of doing something about it, turns around and says our purchasing power parity is higher," she said.

“Even now, as jobs are being lost, as wages are being cut, the double-whammy is that people are struggling with high prices. Inflation has soared to the levels of nearly 7.5 percent," she alleged.