GDP growth at six-year low: Case of quacks turning into surgeons, says Congress; DMK asks BJP to address 'real issues'

India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the April-June quarter of 2019-20 fell to 5 percent from last quarter's 5.8 percent, revealed the official data released by the Central Statistics Office on Friday.

The over six-year low in the GDP growth — a result of sharp deceleration in manufacturing output and subdued farm sector activity — prompted several Opposition parties like Congress, Samajwadi Party, and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), to hit out at the Narendra Modi-led government.

Congress asked on Twitter if the growth of 5 percent was even accurate, while its spokesperson Sanjay Jha claimed that the real GDP was at 3 percent or perhaps even lower.

Jha also lashed out at finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for "wrongfully boasting" last week that India was the fastest-growing world economy. "Did she not even have a clue of the abysmal numbers round the corner of 5 percent? The NDA is a monumental fraud," he tweeted. On Sitharaman's mega plan to merge 10 public sector banks into four in view of the economic slowdown, Jha said the merger "will be a gigantic mess".

Calling it a classic case of quacks turning into surgeons, Congress communications in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala said that the "myopic BJP government" was pre-occupied in shoddy headline management and cover-up jobs when it should be addressing the structural issues ailing the economy. He also said that the "malady is much bigger than what it appears to be".

DMK president MK Stalin said that the BJP should address real issues like job loss, industrial slump, and rural distress instead of speaking in "mere rhetoric and chest thumping".

The Samajwadi Party claimed that the drop in the GDP growth meant that jobs, stock market, farm sector, and development was destroyed and called the government "corrupt".

Meanwhile, Chief Economic Adviser KV Subramanian said the government was taking various steps to boost economic expansion. "The slowdown in growth is due to endogenous and exogenous factors," Subramanian said while commenting on the data, and expressed confidence that the country would be on a high-growth path "very soon".

With inputs from agencies