The Hindu : BJP's `India shining' campaign eyewash: Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

BJP's `India shining' campaign eyewash: Congress

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, FEB. 16. The chief spokesperson of the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee, K. Rosaiah, has criticised the `India shining' campaign of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing it of spreading falsehood.

Talking to presspersons on Monday, Mr. Rosaiah said the TDP-BJP combine in the State and the NDA rule at the Centre in the last five years had pushed the country into the vortex of borrowings.

The hire-purchase culture injected into the economy should certainly not amount to any feel good factor as the Governments were competing in replacing one loan with another, he said. The total liabilities of the Centre had crossed Rs. 15,00,000 crores by now. Instead of building infrastructure in the country, the NDA had only hiked the diesel and petrol prices 26 times in the recent times, affecting the poor.

The economy had registered 10.65 per cent growth rate in 1988-89 and if the GDP rate reached 8 per cent on the basis of the performance of the previous Governments, how could the NDA take credit for it, he asked. During the last six years the growth rate had fallen to 5.5 per cent due to the unimaginative policies of the Government, he added.

Mr. Rosaiah said that taking credit for the rupee dollar parity, which was in favour of India was also wrong as the economies worldwide were appreciating against the dollar. The foreign reserve position was also comfortable in the last one decade. Hot money (meaning deposits accrued due to high interest rate) was not a sign of a healthy economy, he said disputing the NDA claim on this ground.

The NDA and the TDP Government should realise that in the past, interest rate for agriculture sector lending was always lower and the share of the lending was substantial. During the last six years, the same had come down to 9.7 per cent and the number of agriculture accounts had come down from 25 million in 1994 to 20 million in 2003. Sufficiency in food grains was not the result of the NDA but due to the green, white and yellow revolutions launched by Indira Gandhi, he added.

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Andhra Pradesh