BJP should keep real picture of Indian economy in front of nation: Congress

The Congress on Thursday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in regard with the slow Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and urged the saffron party to keep the real picture of the Indian economy in front of the nation.

Congress leader P.L. Punia in a sardonic attack said that the BJP who boasted of an eight percent growth must speak up on the current status of the nation's economy.

"They were talking about eight percent growth rate. But still the government is boasting about itself. I would like to ask the government to keep the real picture of the Indian economy in front of the people of the nation," said Punia.

Echoing similar sentiments, another Congress leader Tom Vadakkan took a dig at the BJP Government over the current GDP status and asked it to not mislead the nation.

"One really doesn't know that this figure reflects the actual reality or this is a figure yet again is being put up to put up an image of a performing government. Unfortunately the ground reality does not speak so," said Vadakkan.

"Earlier there have been cases, where the GDP figure has been contested by economist and the point here is if the growth process is what is being claimed but the ground level we see price rise, unemployment a lot of economic issues which need to be addressed. This is an exercise to divert attention," he added.

The Indian economy slowed sharply in the January-March quarter to 6.1 percent, down from 7 percent in the previous quarter, while the overall pace of growth in 2016-17 moderated to a three-year low of 7.1 percent, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Economists asserted that the dip was due to the impact of government's decision of demonetisation which it implemented in November last year hurting sectors such as construction.