Two Union ministers, who came to Jamshedpur and Adityapur on Sunday for poll campaigns, termed the slowdown as “mandi” and called it a “global phenomenon”.
The identical statements by defence minister Rajnath Singh and petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan here follow on the heels of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that growth may be down but there won’t be any recession.
The fine distinction between mandi (slowdown) and recession is important in an industrial hub where many ancillary units have closed, many are operating on less than full capacity, and pink slips are creating panic.
Defence minister Singh, addressing a rally of around 5,000 at Kalaniketan Maidan, Adityapur, said the “arthik mandi” was a global phenomenon. “But the cloud will certainly dispel in the next six months or so and the life of people will be smooth as usual,” the defence minister predicted.
The senior BJP leader, seeking votes for the victory of the party's Seraikela candidate Ganesh Mahali, decided to move to safer pastures such as the Ayodhya temple, Article 370, NRC and triple talaq.
Singh said that right after the party came to power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a decision to address the basic necessities of the people such as providing pucca houses, electricity, toilets and gas ovens and LPG cylinders.
“Though I will not claim that every house has been connected with electricity and each household is equipped with a toilet, majority of the people have been provided with these basic facilities. We are hopeful that by the end of 2022 all people have a pucca house with a toilet,” said the senior BJP leader.
He said the Congress had also launched a pucca house scheme for those residing in thatched or tiled houses, but the scheme never translated into reality. “Either a house stayed incomplete or was built on paper. But during the NDA government most of those living in mud houses are now residing in pucca houses with electricity, toilet as well as gas oven,” Singh said.
Speaking on the Ayodhya issue, Singh said the Opposition earlier criticised the BJP for using the Ram temple as its poll promise.
“But now we have not only regained the holy plot of land, but are also going to make a grand Ram temple on it,” he said.
He added: “Not that every one in the BJP government is fair and spotless, but it is for certain that if any one is proved to have been embroiled in corruption, there will be no place for that person in the government.”
Pradhan, who addressed a news meet in Jamshedpur, remained tight-lipped on the closed industrial units in Adityapur. He claimed the steel sector was witnessing an upswing on the back of a growth in demand in October-November. He also claimed that the auto sector had
seen improvement with the sales of two- and four-wheelers going up.
Asserting that the slowdown was a temporary phase and the country had nothing to worry, Pradhan said the Modi government had pumped Rs 2.5 lakh crore into the market to boost the economy.
“India has strong economic fundamentals and there is nothing to fear. Slowdown is a global phenomena,” Pradhan said, adding that even big economies across the world had become stagnant.
He blamed cyclical factors for the GDP (gross domestic product) growth hitting a six-and-a-half-year low of 4.5 per cent in the quarter ended September.
But Pradhan parried questions on the closed industrial units in Adityapur and the government’s plans to revive them. It has been over four months that many auto component units in Adityapur have shut down.