The Congress on Saturday sarcastically said that the alleged dramatic rise in the income of home minister Amit Shah’s son Jay was the only credible logic to contest perceptions of an economic slowdown.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said: “All the arguments offered by the ministers in the Narendra Modi government are illogical. But the magic of prince Jay Shah, whose earnings have increased by 15,000 per cent, may convince us that there is no slowdown. Though what business he does is not clear.”

Khera was referring to a report in the Caravan magazine which claimed that the filings uploaded on the ministry of corporate affairs website show that the income of Jay’s company Kusum Finserve LLP had risen to Rs 119.61 crore in 2019 from Rs 79.60 lakh in 2014.

Which industry offers this kind of figures, Khera asked. “He didn’t disclose what is his business. We hear so many things — share trading, agro commodity trading, consultancy,” the spokesperson said.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi also took a dig at Amit Shah, tweeting: “Now the story will be killed. Kanpatti pe gun laga kar.” Rahul was borrowing the expression of Amit Shah, who had said in Parliament in response to queries about the detention of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah: “He is free to move, there is no arrest or detention. Ab gun kanpatti par daal kar toh nahin laa sakte na (We can’t bring him here by putting a gun to his head).”

Khera dripped sarcasm when he said: “No slowdown can affect the prince. All gods are blessing him. He can take all kinds of loans — secured or unsecured. There is a law that every businessman has to complete the filing with the government by October 30 every year. But laws don’t apply to the prince. He didn’t file his documents in 2017 and 2018, probably waiting for the election results. He filed his documents in August 2019. The net fixed assets in 2015 were Rs 51.74 lakh, which shot up to Rs 23.25 crore in 2019.”