GDP back series data: Twitter reactions on govt revising numbers range from 'joke' to 'jugglery' to 'manipulation'

The GDP back series data revision by the government on Wednesday has had some divergent and some strident views on Twitter. The government Wednesday lowered the country's economic growth rate during the previous Congress-led UPA regime, shaving off over 1 percentage point from the only year when India posted double-digit GDP growth post-liberalisation and from each of the three years with 9-plus percent expansion.

Representative image. Reuters.

Recalibrating data of past years using 2011-12 as the base year instead of 2004-05, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) estimated that India's GDP grew by 8.5 percent in the financial year 2010-11 (April 2010 to March 2011) and not at 10.3 per cent as previously estimated.

In a series of tweets, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, the former finance minister, let his views on the GDP data revision known even going to the extent of calling it a 'joke'. He asked if the National Statistical Commission was disbanded and called NITI Aayog an 'utterly worthless body'.

Now that Niti Aayog has done the hatchet job, it is time to wind up the utterly worthless body, said Chidambaram.

Randeep Singh Surjewala called it 'jugglery' and said the 'manipulated back series data' will not change Modi government's exit date.'

Latha Venkatesh of CNBC-TV18 put out her views on what she thinks is the trouble with the revised data:

This chart explains what has changed with the revision in GDP Data

While some said the revision brought NDA and UPA growth on par:

There were some tongue-in-cheek remarks too like this one: