The Congress on Friday expressed shock at the portrayal of blunders as achievements and people’s grief as success in the customary presidential address, which is seen as an annual policy statement of the government.

The party also dismissed the economic survey as an exercise in obfuscation and arrogant display of disconnect with the ground reality.

Referring to the President’s claims that the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was a fulfilment of Mahatma Gandhi’s wishes and the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir was a historic march towards development, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said nothing could be more cruel and vulgar than presenting people’s miseries as achievements.

“The government should be ashamed of compelling the President to articulate such falsehood and lies,” he said. “People have been killed, hundreds injured. Millions are distressed, frightened. It is a shame that people’s grief is being seen as an achievement.”

In the context of Jammu and Kashmir, he said: “What a vulgar mockery of people’s pain and miseries. The poor don’t have anything to eat because of the six-month lockdown. Thousands lost their jobs and the government calls it progress!”

Former home minister P. Chidambaram tweeted: “The re-statement of policy on J&K shows that it has learnt nothing in the last six months and is determined to heap injustice and humiliation on the 75 lakh people.”

He added: “Likewise, the government has obstinately reiterated its hard line position on CAA unmindful of the protests by students, youth and women in every state of India. The government’s rejection of the democratic resistance will only intensify the protests.”

Lamenting that there were no indications on how the government planned to tackle the grave economic slide, Chidambaram said: “All that we heard was tiresome repetition of old slogans and old cliches that have lost all meaning in the last few years. Sadly, there was not a word on the macro-economic situation. Not a word on lost jobs, increasing unemployment and rising consumer price inflation. Not a word on the closure of thousands of industries, especially in the SME sector.”

The Congress described the economic survey as “an exercise in obfuscation”.

The party’s research department head, Rajeev Gowda, said: “The actual situation of fiscal deficit hasn’t been mentioned…. He talks of Thali-nomics at a time when thali is becoming khali.”

Party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate lambasted the growth projections of 6-6.5 per cent, saying: “Last time he got it wrong by 2.5 per cent — the projection was 7 per cent and the growth was less than 5 per cent.”