Slugfest between BJP, Cong as India soars on biz index

In the midst of election campaign in five states, India jumping 23 notches in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking was followed by a UPA versus NDA slugfest. The ruling BJP berated the record of the earlier Congress-led government, while the Congress remarked that India story did not begin on May 16, 2014 when Modi government came to power.

Enthused by the quantum jump, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said India breaking into the top 50 slot on the World Bank's ease of doing business index now looks "plausible".

In his write up, Jaitley drew comparisons between ‘India under UPA’ and ‘The NDA performance’ and pointed out the former’s "miserable track record" vis a vis the latter’s "focussed and purpose-oriented” measures.

The ranking has come as a shot in the arm for Modi government just in the middle of the spate of assembly elections and months before Lok Sabha polls with political temperatures rising and Opposition parties asking the government to account for the promises it had made in the run up to 2014 polls.

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Alleging that India during ten years of UPA rule witnessed high level of "corruption, policy paralysis and abandonment of all reforms", Jaitley flagged that UPA-II during its five-year tenure, witnessed a global ranking of 134, 132, 132, 134 and finally 142.

Jaitley said having inherited the legacy of position number 142, India under Modi moved up every year to reach number 77 this year. “This is a 65 point improvement in the first four years. We are still 27 positions away from the target. The impossible now looks plausible,” he said.

Targeting Congress, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said, “This is ease of doing business versus ease of doing corruption, this is clarity versus confusion.” Another party spokesperson Gopal Agrawal said, “On one side there is Modiji’s decisive BJP government and on the other side is totally confused and defused Rahul Gandhi’s Congress party.”

Sach Bharat II

On a day BJP went to town lauding its government’s performance, senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, addressing a press conference at AICC on Jan Dhan Yojana said, “Just as the India story did not begin on 16 May, 2014 (as Mr Narendra Modi would like us to believe), financial inclusion did not begin with the Jan Dhan Yojana.”

Stressing that it was the UPA government that sowed the idea of financial inclusion, Chidambaram said, “the Jan Dhan self-praise is an elaborate exercise in deception.” Congress released the second part of its 'Sach Bharat Series', a campaign to denounce NDA government’s claims.