P Chidambaram's most scathing remarks about the govt and economy

Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram launched an all-out attack at the Modi government. He described the government as "clueless" about the ailing economy, at a press meet where he declared himself "strong in spirit" after spending over 100 days in prison. Here are his strongest words of criticism aimed at the government.

"Even after 7 months into the fiscal year, the BJP government believes that the problems faced by the economy are cyclical. The government is wrong. It is wrong because it is clueless. It is unable to look for the obvious clues because it is stubborn and mulish in defending its catastrophic mistakes like demonetisation, flawed GST, tax terrorism, regulatory overkill, protectionism, and centralised control of decision-making in the PMO."

"The Prime Minister has been unusually silent on the economy. He has left it to his ministers to indulge in bluff and bluster."

"Nothing sums up the state of the economy better than the following series of numbers: 8, 7, 6.6, 5.8, 5 and 4.5."

"The government has turned out to be an 'incompetent manager' of the economy."

"What does the finance minister mean when she says she does not eat onions? Does she eat avocados?"

"The economy can be brought out of the slowdown, but this government is incapable of doing that. I believe that the Congress and some other parties are better equipped to pull the economy out of the slowdown and push economic growth, but we have to wait for better times."

"The UPA lifted 140 million people out of poverty between 2004 and 2014. The NDA has, since 2016, pushed millions of people below the poverty line."