The Congress on Monday accused the Narendra Modi government of economic mismanagement, citing a report that said the annual income of the poorest 20 per cent of Indian households plunged 53 per cent in the past five years, and demanded measures in the budget to bridge the income disparity.

The survey by a Mumbai-based think tank, People’s Research, has shown that while the annual income of the poor more than halved in the past five years, that of the richest went up by 39 per cent.

“The entire country bore the brunt of the Covid pandemic but the poor and the middle class are victims of the Modi government’s economic epidemic,” Rahul Gandhi tweeted, attaching the highlights of the survey report.

“The credit of widening the chasm between the rich and the poor goes to the central government,” the Congress leader added in the tweet in Hindi.

The Congress later fielded spokesperson Supriya Shrinate to demand urgent tangible measures to fix the sharp disparity between the poor and the rich.

“First, the Oxfam report and now the PRICE (People’s Research on India’s Consumer Economy) survey show the deep fissures between the rich and the poor in the country were rapidly widening,” Shrinate told a media conference.

“Broadly speaking, 60 per cent of India today is earning less than what it was earning five years ago,” she added, stressing that there must be some truth in the findings as more than one survey had shown the same.

The Congress spokesperson highlighted how the income of the poor had surged during the UPA time.

“The 20 per cent whose income has halved under the Modi government had seen their income surge by 183 per cent under the UPA,” she said, adding that between 2004 and 2014, when the UPA was in power, 27 per cent of the poor were lifted out of poverty.

She accused the Modi government of working only for the benefit of a few rich people, stressing how the survey had shown a sharp rise in the income of the 20 per cent rich.

“The Congress demands that the forthcoming budget only focuses on bridging the gap between the rich and the poor, increasing money in the hands of the poor,” she said.

Shrinate suggested that the government institute a “gross economic mismanagement index” so that one gets to know how badly mismanaged the Indian economy is.