NDA govt ruined economy, mutilated soul of India: Cong

New Delhi, Jan 30 (IANS) Had Mahatma Gandhi been alive today he would have been extremely sad for the way the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government had mutilated the soul of India and trampled upon the economy of the country, said the Congress here on Thursday.

Slamming the government, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari, also a Lok Sabha member, said, Bapu gave us independence and he also was firm believer in the socio-economic emancipation of the last man in the last row.

"As the country stands at the cusp of the 2020-21 Union Budget, one can't help but say there was a time not very far ago but just five years back when the economy grew at 8.02 per cent for a decade in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime," Tewari said addressing the media at the party headquarters.

Highlighting the Congress-led UPA government's works, Tewari said, "During our government over 190 million people were lifted out of poverty." But the correct metrics to measure the economy of India today was the global misery index (GMI) and not the gross domestic product (GDP), he said.

He said the unemployment rate stood at 8.5 per cent. "The headline inflation rate is 7.35 per cent, the bank lending rates is broadly at 9.4 per cent. If you subtract the annualised growth of GDP, which is about 3.5 per cent, you get a score of 21.5," Tewari said.

"On the GMI index, the NDA-BJP government is squarely in the red zone. When you catalogue this index, India was the 20th most miserable country in 2016. It fell to 44th position in 2018 and today with the score of 21.5 it's again back among the first 20 most miserable countries. If you look at any economic parameter on which you can benchmark the Indian economy, you would find that it actually validates this score," he said.

The Congress leader said the GDP growth last year was the lowest in 11 years, private consumption was the lowest in 7 years, investment slowest in the last 17 years, manufacturing at 15-year low and agriculture at the 4-year low.