FM Nirmala Sitharaman may present dressed-up estimates: Congress

Claiming that the last Budget began to unravel within weeks of its presentation, the Congress said even without the pandemic, the economy would have continued on the downward path that had begun in the first quarter of 2018-19.

Arguing that seven years of the Narendra Modi government have “wrecked” the Indian economy and prospects of high growth, the Congress Thursday expressed apprehensions that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present “dressed-up” revised estimates for this fiscal in the Union Budget on Monday and try to build an attractive narrative for the coming fiscal year.

Reading out a Congress statement at a press conference at the AICC headquarters, former finance minister P Chidambaram and senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Jairam Ramesh asked the government to take 10 steps — among them imparting a large fiscal stimulus to the economy which will put money in the hands of the people and stimulate demand, direct cash transfers to 20-30 per cent of the families at the bottom of the economy and a rescue plan for MSMEs to revive closed units, recover lost jobs and create new ones — to stem the decline in growth and accelerate recovery.

Claiming that the last Budget began to unravel within weeks of its presentation, the Congress said even without the pandemic, the economy would have continued on the downward path that had begun in the first quarter of 2018-19. “We are afraid that the FM will present a dressed-up Revised Estimates for 2020-21 and attempt to build an attractive narrative for 2021-22. The RE for 2020-21 will be a set of false numbers and, therefore, the BE for 2021-22 will be a conjurer’s illusion,” the Congress said.

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