Congressional leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday attacked the government of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projection of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) during this fiscal year amid the coronavirus disease. Gandhi’s mockery featured neighboring countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, a day after he chose the example of Bangladesh to launch the mockery.
Referring to IMF estimates on Tuesday, Gandhi called it the “solid achievement” of the BJP government. “Another solid achievement from the BJP government. Even Pakistan and Afghanistan handled Covid better than India, ”the former president of Congress tweeted and shared a graph with IMF projections for various countries.
While Pakistan and Afghanistan are expected to see a 0.40% to 5% drop in their GDP growth this fiscal year, India’s GDP is likely to decline by 10.3%, the biggest drop in any major emerging nation and the worst since independence. This points to a downward revision of the IMF’s previous forecast in June, when it said output would decline 4.5%, while in April it said the economy would expect growth of 1.9%.
However, the government had downplayed the IMF projections, saying that GDP per capita increased from Rs 83,091 in 2014-15 to Rs 1.08,620 in 2019-20, pointing to an increase of 30.7%, according to the PTI news agency.
Also on Wednesday, Gandhi had criticized the government. “Solid 6-year achievement of BJP’s hate-filled cultural nationalism: Bangladesh is ready to surpass India,” he tweeted.
The claim was countered by the government, which said India’s GDP is 11 times that of Bangladesh in 2019.
The IMF expects India to grow 8.8% next year. The international body also warned that the recovery of the world economy is tentative and uneven and “marked by significant uncertainty” as the number of cases of coronavirus disease continues to rise in several nations.
.
