FM in war of words with BJP leaders over growth rate

Modi says GDP growth much lower under UPA regime; Chidambaram says Gujarat chief minister staging a 'fake encounter with facts'

It might have been a slip or pure exaggeration by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi but when it comes to numbers, Finance Minister P Chidambaram can’t gloss over these. And, with polls to five assemblies approaching, leaders use harsh words to prove their points.

On Sunday, Modi had said under the (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee government, (gross domestic product, or yearly GDP) growth was 8.4 per cent, adding it was now 4.8 per cent.

Chidambaram, known for number-crunching, said Modi was fabricating numbers. “I wonder why Narendra Modi is staging a fake encounter with facts.” The fact that Chidambaram used analogy with which the Gujarat government is charged was enough for the BJP to counter the finance minister with aggressive words.

In a statement, Chidambaram rolled out GDP growth figures during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime as: 6.7 per cent in 1988-89, 7.6 per cent in 1999-2000, 4.3 per cent in 2000-01, 5.5 per cent in 2001-02, 4 per cent in 2002-03 and 8.1 per cent in 2003-04. He said the average annual growth for the six-year period under the NDA government stood at six per cent, while that for the last five years was 5.9 per cent.

In contrast, average annual GDP growth during the first stint of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was 8.4 per cent, he said. “For the first four years of UPA-II (the second term of the UPA government), the average has been 7.3 per cent,” Chidambaram said, adding the two worst years since the turn of the century were 2000-01 (4.3 per cent) and 2002-03 (four per cent).

Some argue Modi hadn’t mentioned average annual growth; he had merely said growth, which might refer to growth in the last year of the NDA government, as well as that in the fourth year of UPA-II, a point former finance minister Yashwant Sinha relied on to take on Chidambaram.

“Chidambaram is doing terrorism with facts... He is only comparing averages. This is only jugglery of figures,” Sinha told reporters.

Even if Modi compared the last year of the NDA government — 2003-04 — and the fourth year of UPA-II, the numbers don’t match, though the deviation is small. In its last year, the NDA government recorded 8.1 per cent growth, while the fourth year of the UPA-II government saw decade-low growth of five per cent.

In the first quarter of this financial year, the economy grew 4.4 per cent. It is also unclear whether Modi relied on reports by various independent agencies that pegged economic growth at sub-five per cent in the last year of UPA-II.

Sinha took up the cudgels on behalf of Modi. “Can Chidambaram explain why the growth rate today is 4.8 per cent? When growth rate in this period goes down, they have all kinds of explanation on why it has gone down. And, then they quote figures from our time to say they have a better average,” he said.

Sinha alleged Chidambaram was resorting to statistical jugglery, as the UPA government couldn’t compete with the NDA regime on a year-to-year basis and, therefore, it was talking abut averages. “They are comparing a nine-year average with the five-year average of the NDA,” Sinha said, adding when the NDA had come to power, growth was 4.8 per cent but when the BJP-led coalition relinquished office, it was 8.6 per cent.

“The Congress has reasons to be scared of Modi. So, they don’t miss any chance of doing it (targeting Modi). The more they will target him, the more it will help Modi.”