Rupee breaks 61: 'It's biggest failure of economist PM', alleges BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday took the Congress-led UPA Government to task after the Indian rupee breached the 61 mark against the U.S. dollar, saying this is the biggest failure of the economist Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to manage the economy.

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said this is the worst news that the rupee has fallen well below 61 rupees to a dollar.

"Let me remind the country that when UPA took over it was 45 rupees per dollar. With their policies and failures and non-governance and corruption resulting in economic mismanagement. Now, the rupee has come down to 61 rupees per dollar. This is absolutely unacceptable," said Javadekar.

"This is the biggest failure of the economist Prime Minister to manage the economy. Inflation and depreciation both are hurting common man because the prices of petrol, diesel will increase, prices of fertilisers will rooftop and hurt the farmers," he added.

The Indian rupee breached the 61 mark against the U.S. dollar on Monday, beating the previous record low of 60.76 hit on June 26.

The rupee traded at 61.03 as of 11.15 a.m. against Friday's close of 60.23.

The sharp plunge also affected sentiments in equity markets, with the BSE Sensex falling over 300 points in early trades today.

Last week, the rupee fell 1.4 per cent last week and its nine-week losing streak is the longest since the last one ended June 3, 2012.