New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi, a leader of India’s Congress Party, on Friday yet again criticised the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying “even Pakistan and Afghanistan handled Covid better than India”.
He made these remarks in a tweet, accompanied by a graph of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) gross domestic product (GDP) projections for several countries and a wry comment: “Another solid achievement by the BJP government.”
According to the graph, Indian economy is expected to contract by 10.3 per cent this year, the highest contraction among the other countries China, Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Afghanistan.
According to Hindustan Times, this would be the biggest slump of any major emerging nation and the worst since Independence. The IMF, in its World Economic Outlook (WEO) 2020 shared on Tuesday, cut its forecast for India’s GDP growth, which fell at its steepest pace of 23.9pc in the June quarter. It now expects Asia’s third-largest economy to contract 10.3pc for the fiscal year compared with its June prediction of a 4.5pc drop.
Gandhi, following the IMF report, had tweeted: “Solid achievement of six years of BJP’s hate-filled cultural nationalism: Bangladesh set to overtake India.” IMF said forecasts for the global economy are “somewhat less dire” as rich nations and China have rebounded quicker than expected from coronavirus lockdowns.–Agencies
