Congress general secretary (communication) Jairam Ramesh
| Photo Credit: ANI
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s complete focus is not on reducing inflation but on showing low inflation figures, the Congress said on Thursday (November 28, 2024).
In a statement, Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said India had seen 10 years of “Modi-made inflation”, created and fostered by poor policymaking, but the government was focused on propaganda and data manipulation.
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“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 (WPI) figures to show inflation as being under control, even as the ground reality is that the common man is facing non-stop price rise,” Mr. Ramesh said.
The Congress leader said that the spike in the prices of food, fuel, and items of daily use had been particularly high, placing a heavy burden on working-class and middle-class families. Despite the fall in crude oil prices in the global market, petrol and diesel had remained expensive, and this, in turn, had increased the cost of transportation and other services, he said.
‘Attempt to hide real impact of inflation’
“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,” Mr. Ramesh said, adding, “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 said dearness allowance and salary increments had already fallen compared to those of the UPA government, and that now they were 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 United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in GDP growth rate, an attempt was made to artificially increase the growth rate by changing the base year,” Mr. Ramesh said, adding that the same game was played in employment promises.
‘Job data manipulation’
The Congress leader alleged that, to assess job growth, employment criteria was changed to include self-employment and those who have taken on Mudra loans or temporary jobs after the BJP failed to honour its promise of creating two crore jobs for youth every year.
“EPFO data was used to make claims on record job growth – though in reality the data measures EPFO enrolment alone,” he said.
Mr. Ramesh alleged that the government created a deceptive multi-dimensional poverty index to claim massive reductions in poverty, and removed the comparative data of India’s fuel prices with neighbouring countries, that used to be made public during the UPA government, from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) website.
“A government that is focused on propaganda and data manipulation is not one that can be relied on to work for the people’s welfare. Such is the case with this government,” Mr. Ramesh said.
Published – November 28, 2024 01:39 pm IST