India's economy was spectacular under UPA-II, says Shankar Sharma. Really?

“The ineluctable fact is that what India has achieved, particularly under UPA-II, is an outstanding economic performance,” write Shankar Sharma and Devina Mehra of First Global Securities in an opinion piece in Business Standard. “Sure, we have problems. But compared to what the rest of the world has, we will take ours any day.”

That argument – India is in a relatively better state than other countries – in a nutshell, describes why the investment duo are defending the UPA’s economic track record.

[caption id=“attachment_76038” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Finance minister P Chidambaram. PTI[/caption]

In the opinion piece, they point out that countries from Turkey to Russia, Brazil and Indonesia have suffered problems ranging from yawning current account deficits to high inflation and low growth.India, they argue, is not the only country trapped in low-growth mode.On the contrary, they think the UPA should be lauded for its efforts to reduce India’s current account deficit and debt-to-GDP levels.

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“Compared to the precipitous drop every country has seen since 2008, a five percent growth with near-zero debt risk is top-drawer performance,” they note.

They also dismiss the current market rally as a hope-that-Modi-comes-to-power rally, a point of view shared by Congress leaders, including Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

In recent days, there has been a slanging match between current finance minister Chidambaram and former finance minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha about who should take credit for the times when the economy was chugging along nicely and who takes blame for the sputtering economy of the recent years.

The UPA, itself, has claimed that the economy enjoyed its best performance during its regime, a claim disputed by some experts and of course, the BJP.

The election results will tell us which version the voters believe.

For the rest of the Business Standard report, click on this link.