Dinakar attacks Oppn. over ‘misleading’ GDP growth claims
Lanka Dinakar, a government official, has dismissed opposition claims that India's GDP growth is 2.6% rather than the official 7.8%. He argues that the opposition is misusing statistical methodologies by mixing different base years to create political propaganda.
Why it matters
The debate over GDP calculation methodology highlights the ongoing tension between the government and opposition regarding economic performance metrics.
Chairman of the 20 Points Programme (Viksit Bharat – Swarna Andhra Pradesh) Lanka Dinakar on Saturday criticised the Opposition parties for portraying the country’s 7.8% GDP growth as 2.6%, terming it “political propaganda”.
He said combining the old 2011–12 GDP series with the new 2022–23 series to portray the official 7.8% GDP growth as 2.6% is intended to mislead the public.
He criticised the Congress leaders, its supporters, Left sympathisers, and those ideologically opposed to the Narendra Modi government for creating “confusion among the public” in the name of statistics.
“Growth must be calculated based on a single GDP series, a single base year, a consistent methodology, and comparable prices. Taking the 2025-26 figures from the 2011-12 series and the 2026-27 figures from the 2022-23 series, and presenting the difference between them as actual GDP growth, is not scientifically valid,” he said.
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