PM Focuses More on Propaganda, Data Manipulation Than Reducing Inflation: Congress

In a reprimand, the Congress on Thursday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's entire focus is not on reducing inflation, but on showing low inflation figures. Taking a jibe, it said that a government that is focused on propaganda and data manipulation cannot be relied to work for people's welfare.

Jairam Ramesh, the Congress general secretary in-charge communications said that India has witnessed ten years of a "Modi-made inflation", created and fostered by the government's poor policy-making.

The prime minister's entire focus is not on reducing inflation, but on showing low inflation figures. The government is now concertedly attempting to manipulate the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Wholesale Price Index (WP1) figures to show inflation as being under control, even as the ground reality is that the common man is facing non-stop price rise," Ramesh said in a statement.

Highlighting price rise, Ramesh said that prices for food, fuel and items of daily use are rising which is putting a heavy load on India’s working class and middle class families as well. The global market has seen a fall in crude oil prices but in India petrol, diesel remains expensive which has made transportation and other services costly, the Congress general secretary said in his statement.

"Food inflation has been another concern that has underlined the high levels of overall inflation. Accordingly, the government is now preparing to reduce the weightage of food items in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is an attempt to hide the real impact of inflation, and an indication of the government's priorities of massaging inconvenient data rather than acting on it," Ramesh said.

“This attempted change in the CPI weightage is not only dishonest, it will also impact the incomes of an estimated 3-4 crore people, including government and semi- government employees," he added.

Ramesh alleged that DA (dearness allowance) as well as salary increment have fallen in comparison to the UPA government and they are set to fall further.

“This is not a new development. The Modi government has repeatedly tried to mislead the country by juggling data. Earlier, when the B.JP government started lagging behind the UPA government in GDP growth rate, an attempt was made to artificially increase the growth rate by changing the base year," Ramesh commented, while adding further that the same game was played in employment promises.

Though BJP promised two crore youth jobs every year, they stopped surveys and reports were or modified to hide this reality when unemployment started increasing, ramesh alleged.

Ramesh pointed out those employment criteria was changed and self-employment and those who have taken on Mudra loans or temporary jobs are included in employed category.

"EPFO data was used to make claims on record job growth - though in reality the data measures EPFO enrolment alone," he said adding that rather than setting a transparent poverty line, the Government created a deceptive multi-dimensional poverty index to claim massive reductions in poverty.

“In the meantime, the poor have faced difficulty in taking advantage of welfare schemes due to this jugglery” he said.

"Despite the fall in crude oil prices internationally, the prices of petrol, diesel and LPG were increased. During the UPA government, information on comparison of India's fuel prices with neighbouring countries was made public on the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) website. In keeping with its record of opacity, the government removed the data from its website," he said.

“Instead, it has allowed record profit-making by oil and gas companies, apart from extorting revenue of Rs 36 lakh crore from the public through taxes on petrol and diesel”—Ramesh alleged.