New Delhi. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the state of the economy and said his ‘stale speeches’ repeating the same old things cannot hide his ‘absolute failures’ affecting every aspect of the country’s economy. .
Kharge said on ‘X’, “Modinomics is a curse for India’s economy”. He raised issues like domestic indebtedness, price rise and problems in the manufacturing sector and claimed that “Make in India has failed miserably”. He said, “Narendra Modi ji, your same old lectures, repeated again and again, cannot hide your obvious failures affecting every aspect of India’s economy!” Kharge said that in real terms, there has been a huge increase of 241 percent in household liabilities/indebtedness from 2013-14 to 2022-23. He said domestic debt as a percentage of GDP is at an all-time high of 40 percent.
Kharge said that household savings are at a 50-year low and since the Covid-19 pandemic, the consumption of Indian families has exceeded their income. He said, “In September 2024, the price of homemade vegetarian thali has increased by 11 percent compared to last year. BJP-imposed inflation and destruction of the unorganized sector are responsible for this chaos!” Kharge said, “Make in India has failed miserably in 10 years because your policies have wiped out the gains of India’s growing exports during the Congress-UPA rule.”
He said, “‘India’s export growth’ – Congress-UPA: 2004 to 2009 -186.59 percent, 2009 to 2014 -94.39 percent; BJP-NDA: 2014-2019 – 21.14 percent, 2019-2023 – 56.8 percent.” The Congress president said, “It is no surprise that the average growth rate of the manufacturing sector between 2014-15 and 2023-24 is just 3.1 percent (BJP-National Democratic Alliance), whereas the average growth rate between 2004-05 and 2013-14 The rate was 7.85 percent (Congress-United Progressive Alliance).” Kharge said this “disastrous policy” has reduced the share of workers employed in the manufacturing sector from 15.85 percent (2017-18) to 11.4 percent (2023-24).
The Congress president said diamond workers in Surat are facing challenges as their wages have been cut by up to 30 per cent and major diamond units are forced to work only four days a week. He claimed that more than 60 diamond artisans have committed suicide in the last six months.
“In your campaign to corner the Congress party on MNREGA, you have deliberately failed to allocate more funds for this demand-driven scheme,” Kharge said. “Your government has artificially reduced demand by delaying wages and not providing timely funds to opposition (ruled) states,” the Congress leader said. He said that the demand for work under MNREGA has dropped to only 1.6 crore in August 2024, which is the lowest monthly demand since October 2022.