Riding on the success of his previous prediction on India's economic growth, former finance minister P. Chidambaram now sees the GDP growth rate dipping further in the next quarter. "As predicted widely, GDP growth in Q2 has come lower at 4.5%. Yet the Government says "All is well". Q3 will not be more than 4.5% and in all likelihood will be worse (sic)," tweeted his family on behalf of the jailed Congress leader on Saturday, a day after government data showed that India's growth touched a 26-quarter low of 4.5 per cent.
Despite being jailed since August 21 for alleged money laundering in the INX Media corruption case, Chidambaram continues to be a vociferous critic of the government's economic policies. His family regularly tweets from his Twitter handle, as per his instructions. Likewise, on November 27, Chidambaram had predicted that the second quarter GDP growth would be less than 4.7 per cent. "Brace yourself for bad news on the economy. After 5% GDP growth in the final quarter, the growth rate in the second quarter is likely to be less than 4.7%," he had tweeted. He added that the government was clueless about the economy. "It is fiddling while growth slumps, unemployment increases, consumption is reduced and the poor are driven to misery."
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Two days later on Friday, government data revealed that the growth rate had slowed down to 5 per cent in the first quarter of the current financial year to 4.5 per cent at the end of September.
In one of his last columns before he was arrested by the CBI on August 21, Chidambaram had lambasted the "uncaring government" for whom "the economy seems to be the last of the concerns". "The economy is one area where muscular nationalism will not work. On the contrary, it may work to the detriment of the economy," he wrote in The Indian Express.
Three months later, Chidambaram's stay in prison has extended for more than 100 days and India stares at a plummeting economy. The drop in GDP growth has been attributed to weak manufacturing and a drop in exports due to a global slowdown. The economy was growing at 7 per cent during the same time last year.