The Hindu : Congress joins issue with BJP on economic policies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 15, 2004

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Congress joins issue with BJP on economic policies

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 14. The Congress today joined issue with the Bharatiya Janata Party on economic policy stating that it needed to be reminded that it was Indira Gandhi who had ushered in the Green Revolution, made the country a major space power and conducted a peaceful nuclear explosion.

The Congress said that Indira Gandhi had also introduced a large number of anti-poverty and rural development programmes that changed the face of rural India.

Responding to the BJP spokesperson's remarks that he was not aware of the average growth rate under the Vajpayee Government during the past five years, the AICC secretary, Jairam Ramesh, said that economic growth was never more than 5.6 per cent to 5.7 per cent during Mr. Vajpayee's current tenure, the same as under Indira Gandhi during 1980-84. It was lower than the 5.9 per cent under Rajiv Gandhi during 1985-89 and lower than the 6.7 per cent under P. V. Narasimha Rao during 1992-96. He said the economy recorded 8.1 per cent growth in 1967-68, nine per cent in 1975-76, 7.2 per cent in 1980-81 and 7.7 per cent in 1983-84.

"The BJP needs to be reminded that under Indira Gandhi, as under other Congress Prime Ministers, economic growth resulted predominantly from agricultural and industrial growth unlike as in Mr. Vajpayee's tenure when agriculture and industry have suffered immensely," he said.

The economic reforms of 1991 represented change with continuity, the party said adding that it was actually under Indira Gandhi that liberalisation first started with cement decontrol. The BJP had opposed much of the economic reforms under Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao, for which it now claimed credit.

The Congress said that for the first time in 50 years, employment in the organised sector had fallen for five years in a row under Mr. Vajpayee.

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