NEW DELHI, Jan 17: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday claimed the country is facing the risk of falling into a debt trap due to the policies of the Modi government and said the truth cannot be hidden behind the noise of “advertising tamashas”.
Kharge said the IMF has “warned” the country over its high debt-to-GDP ratio of 81 per cent instead of the acceptable 60 per cent.
“The Modi government will present the last budget of its tenure in 15 days. Some facts – the savings of the country’s families are at the lowest level in 50 years. This has fallen to 5.1 per cent of GDP.
“While the total debt of the government (fiscal deficit – central government: 5.9 per cent, State: 3.1 per cent) is estimated to be around 9 per cent.
“According to this, it is clear that the government alone will have to borrow more than what the families of the country are saving. This is most dangerous,” he said in a post in Hindi on X.
According to IMF, he said, the Debt to GDP Ratio should be 60 per cent, “but it is currently at 81 per cent, and IMF has also warned on this, which the Modi government has habitually rejected.”
“The Indian government is continuously getting ensnared in the debt trap. It may happen that like some big economies of the world, both our economy and the future of the country get entangled in a vicious circle and fall into big trouble,” Kharge said.
The Congress president alleged that the Modi government boasts of spending more, but the reality is that 15 ministries have so far spent only 17.8 per cent of the last budget.
This, he said, includes ministries of MSME, Petroleum, Civil Aviation, Food Processing, Corporation, Minority and North East.
“The truth cannot be hidden from the noise of advertising ‘tamashas’,” Kharge said.
Odisha ex-CM Giridhar Gamang rejoins Congress
Former Odisha chief minister Giridhar Gamang on Wednesday joined the Congress along with his wife and son almost nine years after he quit the party.
Congress is the only party in the country that does principled politics, said the former nine-time MP from Koraput who had joined the BJP in 2015 and switched to the BRS in January 2023.
Gamang asserted that he never left the Congress party’s thoughts and ideology.He along with his wife Hema Gamang and son Shishir Gamang and another BJP leader Sanjay Bhoi, also a former MP, formally joined the party at the AICC headquarters here in the presence of party treasurer Ajay Maken along with AICC in-charge for Odisha Ajoy Kumar.
Giridhar Gamang was elected for the first time to the fifth Lok Sabha from Koraput in 1972 and he subsequently was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1977, 1980, 1984, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 and 2004. He was the Chief Minister of Odisha from February 17, 1999 to December 6, 1999.His wife Hema Gamang won from Koraput constituency in the 1999 elections to the 13th Lok Sabha, while he was serving as the Chief Minister of Odisha.Sanjay Bhoi was a former MP from the Bargarh Lok Sabha constituency in Odisha on the Congress ticket in 2009. (PTI)