Every classic economic indicator has been disappointing: Tharoor

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Saturday hit out at the central government, saying that every important indicator used for measuring economic growth has performed 'disappointingly.'

"If you look at the economy, almost every one of the classic indicators has been disappointingly performing. For example unemployment levels. If you look at the export, manufacturing, investment, every one of the indicators are down," said Tharoor at the Indo-Japan chamber of commerce.

"Agrarian distress is so bad. And the number of farmers suicide has been covered up by the government because the number is so hard now," he added.

Over the status of MSME, Tharoor said, "The number of small and micro enterprises that literally has to shut down because of the demonetization. Suddenly there is no cash in the economy."

"Number of small retail enterprises has to shut down because of the hazy unprepared implementation of the GST. Demonetization is a bad idea implemented badly. GST was a good idea implemented badly," he added.

He also questioned the credibility of the central government's data, saying, "A larger credibility crisis we are facing with government's socio-economic data. This makes India immense damage lonely."

He further said: "Some would say that even more worried in the picture facing the nation at the level of politics, of social division, of nationhood with religion being introduced as the test into the citizenship.