‘Cong. gave slogans, PM provided resources’

July 14, 2018 12:00 am | Updated 05:21 am IST - NEW DELHI

Jaitley says at current expansion, India will overtake Britain and become fifth largest economy in 2019

Arun Jaitley

Arun Jaitley

Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said India would soon surpass Great Britain to become the fifth largest economy in the world next year if economic expansion continued at the projected rate, with a caveat that rising international crude oil prices and the global trade war would throw up challenges.

In a blog entitled ‘The Congress gave slogans to rural India- Prime Minister Modi gave resources’, he said the country could look forward to economic expansion in the next decade.

A latest World Bank report has said that the Indian economy has become world’s sixth biggest economy, pushing France to the seventh place. The U.S. tops the list followed by China, Japan, Germany and Britain.

He added that the NDA government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had ensured that rural India and the less privileged got the first right on resources and if this, along with increased expenditure, continued for the next decade, the impact on India’s rural poor would be significant, he said.

“This benefits all irrespective of religion, caste or community. The Congress provided India’s poor with slogan. Prime Minister Modi has given them resources. This will ensure faster growth and lead to a faster depletion of poverty.”

“The 1971 ‘Garibi Hatao’ model was one of redistribution of poverty rather than the generation of wealth and resources. The result of this misguided approach was that the lives of the poor did not move up significantly. On the contrary, the present Prime Minister is a man of many words and many more actions. He announces stiff targets and programmes which at first sight appear to be difficult, if not impossible. He follows it up with the actual implementation and delivers on the promise,” Mr. Jaitley said.

Congress has a query

The Congress reacted sharply to Mr. Jaitley’s blog. AICC media in-charge Randeep Surjewala said Mr. Jaitley needed to clarify whether he was still the Finance Minister. “...That is the most important thing he needs to do. He must solve that mystery.”

Top News Today

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.