BJP MP Nishikant Dubey issues defamation notice to former Finance Secretary Subhash Garg

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey has escalated his ongoing feud with former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, announcing that he has filed a criminal defamation case against the retired bureaucrat over claims of an official meeting between them.

The confrontation unfolded publicly after the Godda lawmaker lashed out at Garg in a fiery social media post, rejecting any suggestion that he had visited Garg's office during his tenure in government.

"This insolence of Subhash Garg, the former Finance Secretary, I have decided to set right—I have filed a criminal defamation case against him, because he has mentioned a meeting with me in his office. Subhash, for your information, I became an MP in 2009, and from then until today, I have never gone to any office of the Government of India, because a Secretary of the Government of India is below an MP in protocol," Dubey wrote on X (formally twitter).

"Secondly, from 2009 until today, I have never written any letter regarding a transfer posting. What's more, if any of your friends gives you information about any letter of mine or any office meeting, then I will consider you the son of a man. The path for Subhash, who has sunk the country's economy, is jail," he added.

The fresh legal action marks a sharp turn in a public row that reignited when Garg publicly questioned the credibility of the government's recent Q1GDP growth figures, which were reported at 7.8 per cent. Garg claimed that adjustments in the baseline current-price GDP data obscured the actual rate of economic expansion, asserting that nominal GDP growth would be significantly lower if measured against original estimates released the previous year.

In response to Garg's critiques, Dubey revived an old conflict by sharing a letter he had originally sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2018. At the time, Garg was serving as the Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs — a post he held before being elevated to Finance Secretary in March 2019.

In the 2018 letter, Dubey had urged the Prime Minister to review Garg’s macroeconomic framework, warning that an overly rigid focus on fiscal consolidation, tight fiscal deficit targets, and strict adherence to the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) framework was actively hindering national development.

Dubey had argued that critical capital expenditure — including major infrastructure initiatives like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, industrial corridors, and regional airway expansion under UDAN — required robust public funding and flexibility rather than fiscal austerity.

Asserting that his concerns stemmed from his interactions with Garg during his stint as Economic Affairs Secretary, Dubey warned that the bureaucrat's conservative approach was out of sync with the government's growth ambitions.