The Congress on Wednesday wondered how finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman could busy herself with tweeting about the “gravitational dance of galaxies” when inflation and unemployment rates of over 7 per cent had wreaked havoc on common people.
Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said polarisation and disharmony have taken the front seat whereas distressing issues such as rising inflation, unemployment and a depreciating rupee are nowhere on its (government’s) agenda. The country witnessed the highest unemployment in the last 45 years. Various reports have time and again highlighted the fact that 97 per cent Indians got poorer in just one year between 2020 and 2021. The unemployment rate has gone up to 7.8 per cent with a loss of 25 lakh jobs in June 2022.”
He added: “The BJP has spelt doom with the number 7. Retail inflation was recorded at 7.01 per cent in June 2022 as per the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released yesterday. The RBI’s projection for retail inflation for the next quarter, July to September 2022, is 7.4 per cent. Food inflation at 7.75 per cent is killing the lower- and middle-income groups. Inflation recorded in vegetables in June 2022 was 17.37 per cent.”
Rahul Gandhi posted a chart on Twitter, saying: “When Ego-nomics trumps Economics.” The chart showed how unemployment, which was 4.7 per cent in 2014, had shot up to 7.8 per cent in 2022, LPG cylinders that were available for Rs 410 apiece in 2014 were being sold for Rs 1,053 per unit, and the rupee had slipped from 59 to 80 against the dollar. It also pointed out how the debt of the government had jumped from Rs 56 lakh crore in 2014 to Rs 139 lakh crore in 2022, while the trade deficit had soared from $135 billion in 2014 to $190 billion dollar in 2022.
Vallabh sarcastically said the finance minister was busy with celestial spectacles instead of dealing with the grave challenges the country was grappling with. “She has retweeted seven Nasa tweets about galaxies. It is difficult to guess what is her priority. The colour has gone out of the lives of common people and the finance minister is ecstatic about the colourful galaxies. Crores of people have lost their jobs. But neither the Prime Minister nor the finance minister has spoken a word on this,” the Congress leader said.
The finance minister did retweet the Nasa tweets about the pictures transmitted by the James Webb Space Telescope, but she also tweeted about inflation, albeit rubbishing the presumption about an impact on the masses in India. While Sitharaman didn’t mention unemployment, she almost argued that inflation wasn’t such a concern.
She said in a series of tweets: “A recent UNDP report ‘Addressing the Cost-of-Living Crisis in Developing Countries’ shows that inflation will have only a negligible impact on poverty in India, adding that targeted transfers (such as what India has been doing) help poorer households cope with price spikes. The report shows inflation in India will not push anybody below the lower poverty line of $1.9/day, while only 0.02% & 0.04% of the population will go below higher poverty lines of $3.3/day & $5.5/day, respectively.
“The report says that food and energy inflation could push up to 71 million people into poverty globally. It also says that ‘We find that targeted & time-bound cash transfers are the most effective policy tool to address the impacts’. From the beginning of the pandemic, Modi Government has implemented such targeted & time-bound transfers of food and cash to those at the bottom of the pyramid through the PMGKAY and PMGKY. These results highlight the effectiveness of this strategy.”
