The Congress on Saturday alleged mismanagement of the economy by the government and that it has suffered due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "reckless" decisions.

Senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said that in the past five years, India's economy is "gasping" instead of "galloping".

"The government is destroying the credibility of Indian data by embellishing the data, fudging numbers and inflating figures. The fact is that there has been an monumental mismanagement of Indian economy under his watch. It is not galloping economy but a gasping economy, a struggling economy which has also suffered because of the reckless decision of Prime Minister Modi," he told reporters.

The Congress leader claimed that Modi has to be held accountable for destroying tens of millions of jobs by demonetisation.

"He has to answer for a hasty imposition of a flawed GST model which he claimed to be 'one nation, one tax', but it is one nation, five taxes which excludes 45 percent of the revenue, making Indian GST the most burdensome most complex," he said.

Sharma said the four engines of the Indian economy -- investment, manufacturing, exports and capital formation -- were down.

"How can you keep on claiming that we are the fastest growing (economy) by not creating jobs but by destroying them. There is a huge contradiction. This economy is not creating jobs. Exports have stagnated for five years, manufacturing has gone down, gross fixed capital formation has remained hovering over zero. National investment rate has fallen. These are the facts. The government has gone into heavy borrowing," he said.

Sharma also alleged that the country has played with the credibility of the country's data. "Fudging of the data is not going to help. NITI Aayog's job is not meant to embellish numbers and fudge the country's data. The prime minister and his government has played with the credibility of the country's data. They have dented the credibility," he said.

"The time has come to punish the PM and his govt for destroying the credibility of Indian data, embellish the data, fudging numbers and inflating figures. The fiscal deficit has reached an alarming point. These are the questions to the prime minister," he said.

He said if the Congress comes to power after the April-May parliamentary election, it would scrap the NITI Aayog and bring back the Planning Commission.

Sharma also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for allegedly splurging on advertisements.

"BJP spent Rs 4,397 crore on advertisements in the last three years. Even when we were in power and they were in Opposition, BJP had more resources than us. Even today the ratio is 90:10 in terms of spending on advertisement," the former union minister said.

Sharma alleged that Modi and the BJP had spent more than Rs 4,000 crore on advertisement in the last four years, which surpassed the advertisement expenditure of multinational brands such as Netflix and Amazon.

First Published:Mar 31, 2019 6:54 AM IST