Economy in ICU due to BJP government's 'mismanagement': Tewari

CHANDIGARH: Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari alleged on Monday that the BJP government at the Centre was "mismanaging" the country's economy, which why it was in "intensive care unit".

The Anandpur Sahib MP also said the Congress would launch a nationwide protest from Tuesday to highlight the "critical" state of Indian economy.

"The Indian economy is in ICU and the BJP-led government is responsible for the same. They have completely mismanaged the economy, adversely affecting lakhs of jobs in the country," Tewari told reporters here.


He said country-wide protests will be organized to "shake" the government "out of its sloth" that has rendered the country "virtually bankrupt".

Referring to the "dismal" state of affairs in the country's job market, Tewari said, "The BJP government has turned India's demographic dividend into a demographic disaster."

Quoting the National Sample Survey Office figures, he said the "unemployment figure was at a 45-year-high and still rising".

"According to the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate stood at 8.19 per cent as in August, 2019, which has further risen to 8.5 per cent, which is the highest ever," he said.

"Also as per the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the unemployment rate is 4.95 per cent."

Asserting that the Indian economy was "sinking", he said, the GDP growth was slowest in the last six years.

"Despite the data jugglery, GDP growth in the first quarter of the 2019-20 fiscal is at an abysmal low of 5 per cent," he said, adding all agencies including the IMF and World Bank has cut India's growth forecast due to the "policy paralysis and ideological bankruptcy" of the BJP government.