'Filth-Seeking Flies': BJP Slams Congress, Raghuram Rajan Over 5% GDP Growth 'Prediction'

India's GDP expanded by 6.1 per cent in Q4 of fiscal year 2022-23, according to official data shared by National Statistical Office. For the entire FY23, the growth rate came in at 7.2 per cent.

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) slammed economist and former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan over his reported conversation with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi where the former had said that “India would be lucky to achieve 5% GDP growth next year (FY 2022-23)". This comes a day after government released the data showing the Indian economy grew at 7.2 per cent in the fiscal year 2022-23.

Taking to Twitter, BJP spokesperson Amit Malviya said, “Raghuram Rajan in this dated conversation (2022) with Rahul Gandhi, sounded less like an economist, and more like Rajdeep Sardesai, when he said, ‘India would be lucky to do 5% GDP growth next year (FY2022-23)’. Fact is India has registered 7.2% GDP growth in FY2022-23. 7.2%!”

“Congress apologists are like ‘filth seeking flies’. Give them a clean room and they will look for that tiny spec of dirt and scream blue murder. Put them in stinking filth (reminiscent of UPA era), and they wallow, in pleasure. They are inherently sadists, who want to see a billion people starve so that they can wax eloquent about povertarianism, while sipping on their exquisite wine,” Malviya wrote.

Notably, the conversation between Raghuram Rajan and Rahul Gandhi reportedly took place in December 2022, when Gandhi was in the middle of his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Raghuram Rajan also took part in the yatra.

It is to be noted that India's gross domestic product or GDP expanded by 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of fiscal year 2022-23, according to the official data shared by the National Statistical Office (NSO). For the entire FY23, the growth rate came in at 7.2 per cent. In Q4FY22, gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 4 per cent.

The growth in real GDP during 2022-23 is estimated at 7.2 per cent as compared to 9.1 per cent in 2021-22, while nominal GDP or GDP at Current Prices in the year 2022-23 is estimated to attain a level of Rs 272.41 lakh crore, as against Rs 234.71 lakh crore in 2021-22, showing a growth rate of 16.1 per cent, according to the release.

In Q3FY23, the GDP growth rate was 4.4 per cent, while it was 6.3 per cent in Q2FY23, and 13.2 per cent in Q1FY23.