'Inefficient' Congress responsible for present economic crisis: Chandrababu Naidu

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday criticized the ruling Congress government, and said that they have failed miserably in controlling corruption, and added that Congress' inefficiency and lack of leadership at the Central level is responsible for the present economic crisis.

"For the last 10 years the Government of India has failed miserably in controlling corruption and also misuse of power. They are unable to govern because of all this reasons, economy is in doldrums, rupee is falling by the day and people are suffering because of this. Compared to all other currencies, day-by-day Indian currency is getting weak. No investor is having any confidence. All this is because of Congress' inefficiency and also their corruption. There is lack of leadership at the Central level," he said.

On Wednesday, the rupee continued to topple and hit its record low of 68.75 against the U.S. dollar.

In order to arrest the rupee slide, RBI had announced measures such as restriction on Indian firms investing abroad and on outward remittances by resident Indians, triggering talks of return of capital control regime.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had earlier on August 27 during a debate on the economic situation in the Lok Sabha attributed much of the current economic woes to the stimulus provided to help the industry to tide over the problems emanating from the global financial meltdown of 2008.

"Fiscal deficit limits had been breached. The CAD had swelled. These were the two main challenges, apart from the number of other challenges that we had to face," he said.

Chidambaram, however, claimed that situation had improved till the unexpected development on May 22, 2013, when the US Federal Reserve announced tapering of bond purchases which sent the emerging markets in a tizzy.

"In the last 12 months there have been days when I have been more upbeat; days when I been more downcast. But the fact is some stability did return to the economy until a completely unexpectedly unexpected event took place on May 22, 2013", he said.

The rupee on Thursday gained 3.3 percent to end at 66.55 per dollar against Wednesday's close of 68.80.