Economist Raghuram Rajan speaking to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on his YouTube channel. (File)
Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat today took a dig at Raghuram Rajan, a former governor of India's central bank who recently joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra': “His views about India's economy will also change in the next three to four years.”
He said Mr Rajan had predicted default in repayment of Mudra scheme — loans of up to Rs 10 lakh to small businesses — but “that did not happen”.
Mr Shekhawat was speaking about India's economy amid a global turmoil in an interview with NDTV.
His comments on Raghuram Rajan — who headed the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, overlapping the Congress-led UPA era and Narendra Modi's first coming to power in 2014 — come when the BJP has been questioning his “neutrality” as an economist.
Gajendra S Shekhawat is the Union Minister for Jal Shakti (water resources). (File)
“[Raghuram Rajan] ignored the Modi government's proven achievement in managing the economy despite the shock of the pandemic and geopolitical disruptions,” the BJP's Media Cell head Anil Baluni has said, accusing him of “glossing over” the UPA government's “failures, corruption and crony capitalism”.
BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya has said Mr Rajan “fancies himself as the next Manmohan Singh”, an economist who became PM. “Just that his commentary on India's economy should be discarded with disdain,” he'd tweeted.
Minister Shekhawat today said, “India is the fastest growing economy in the world. It has emerged as a strong power. The November export figures have come now, and are very encouraging.”
He added, “If you look at the statistics of the last one month, many countries in the world are facing recession. India has done very well in terms of production and exports. Exports increased by 10.79 per cent.”
He listed “steps taken by PM Modi”, such as Skill India and Startup India, as key factors.
“Even critics of India believe that, given the speed with which the economy is growing, it is estimated that by 2027 India will become the third largest economy in the world,” he said.
He claimed improvements in “ease of doing business”, because “an atmosphere of security and stability was created, which increased foreign investment”.
He also slammed Raghuram Rajan's recent comments, in which the economist had said “we (India) will be lucky if we achieve 5 per cent growth next year”.
The minister said Mr Rajan can have his opinions but “organisations around the world are saying that India's growth will be 7-8 per cent”.
Mr Rajan, while speaking to Rahul Gandhi after walking with him earlie this week, stressed, “The problem with the growth numbers is that you have to understand what you are measuring with respect to.” He said when growth is compared to the “terrible” last quarter, “you look very good”.
He added, “Ideally what you do is look before the pandemic in 2019 and look at now… If you look at 2022 vis-a-vis 2019, [growth is] about 2 per cent a year. It's too low for us.”
He acknowledged the pandemic as “part of the problem”. “But we were slowing before the pandemic. We had gone from 9 per cent to 5. And, we haven't really generated reforms which will generate growth,” he said.
Mr Rajan also spoke about growing gap between the rich and poor, when Rahul Gandhi asked him about “4-5 persons getting rich and going into any businesses while the rest remain backward”.
“We couldn't be against capitalism,” Mr Rajan said, “But we should be fighting for competition. We could be up against monopoly. Monopoly is not good for the country.”