Arrogance blended with self-denial is a deadly cocktail and who better than our Finance Minister can demonstrate the after effects better! The fact that the Finance Minister and the UPA are living in a dream world was evident when he released a statement before going to the National Integration Council meeting, which questioned Narendra Modi’s claims of the economic growth under Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA and the economic decline under the present UPA.

Chidambaram asked Modi not to stage ‘fake encounters’ with facts when the truth is that the Finance Minister is fooling the entire nation by giving half-baked facts and incomplete analysis. I ask the Finance Minister five questions that will puncture his attempt to mislead the people of India.

 Can Chidambaram deny that when UPA took charge (he was Finance Minister even back then), the growth rate of India was 8.6 per cent? 

This was the result of a commendable effort of the Vajpayee Government considering the economic mess they inherited in 1998 and the severe economic sanctions by the world community in the aftermath of Pokhran. Placing India’s self respect first and backing it up by a grand vision, the Vajpayee Government left the economy at its peak with the growth rate of 8.6 per cent in 2004.

It is alright to share year by year growth rate figures of the NDA rule Mr Finance Minister but did you bother to check the growth rate of the nation in the last year itself, which stood at a mere 4.98 per cent? How did Chidambaram forget this inconvenient but obvious truth right under his watch?

It may be worthwhile to remind our Harvard educated Finance Minister that last quarter growth for 2012-2013 stood at 4.8 per cent and the figure dropped even lower during the first quarter of this year at 4.4 per cent. In fact, Narendra Modi was very kind not to mention the quarterly figures for this year this year, preferring to stick to the Q4 figures of last year, which are marginally better.

It is not only the common man and woman or Narendra Modi that is rightly worried about the economy. Various national and international agencies of repute have expressed concern about the economic gloom prevalent across the nation? If he is not, I would love to enlighten the anti-encounter specialist Chidambaram.

Standard & Poor’s has said that the chances of India’s ratings downgrade look much higher compared to other emerging market economies. Further downgrade would even push it to ‘junk’ status. After the quarterly GDP growth at dismal 4.4 per cent, HSBC forecasted GDP growth for FY14 at just four per cent, a low not recorded since the 1990s. Bank of America went to the extent of saying that there is no hope the government can change things the way they are currently. According to the Reuters report, almost all global banks are skeptical about India’s growth prospects. Is this also the NDA’s doing?

One of the factors that determine the performance of the Government is the opportunity it created for the people.

NSSO statistics (I presume they were not fudged by the NDA, Chidambaram) clearly suggest that the number of jobs created from 1999-2004 was 60.1 million whereas the figure between 2004-2011 is a poor 14.6 million (the figure for UPA 1, which PC calls the golden period growth is 2.7 million). These figures only speak for themselves!

Thus, instead of setting his own house in order the Finance Minister has done everything else under the sun. Few remember that the economic ruin of India began in 2008 thanks to mindless spending.

When the NDA came to power the growth rate was 4.8 per cent. Today we are yet again close to that figure in 2013 after a golden period starting from 1999, whose efforts were seen in the growth rate during 2003 and 2004.

Do we want to go back to 1997? And by the way, do you know who the Finance Minister that time was…