Senior Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that never before in its history has Maharashtra performed so badly on all fronts, as he attacked the BJP-Mahayuti here on Saturday.
“Ever since Maharashtra was formed, the state has always been a leader in all sectors due to goal-oriented policies of successive Congress regimes. Mumbai is India’s financial capital, but in the past few years, it has deteriorated on multiple fronts under the BJP government. The BJP-Mahayuti in Maharashtra is acting under the instructions of Gujarat and now there is a need for change to arrest the multi-front decline here by bringing back the MVA government,” Chidambaram said, addressing the media at Tilak Bhavan.
The per capita income of Maharashtra has declined while other states like Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Haryana have moved ahead, he said, citing economic data.
He stated that state’s per capita income has dropped from 9.6 per cent to 7.6 per cent, while its agriculture sector has declined from 4.5 per cent to 1.9 per cent, and its service sector declined from 13 per cent to 8 per cent. He said that the housing and realty sector fell from 14.5 per cent to 6.2 per cent and the fiscal deficit of the state has widened.
“Unemployment has reached alarming proportions at 10.8 per cent and the number of salaried class employees has dropped from 40 per cent to 31 per cent,” Chidambaram said, adding that the Mahayuti government is spending money but there is no growth in any sector.
He stated that the unemployment problem was so severe that for just 18,000 posts of police personnel, more than 11 lakh applications were received, while for 4,600 posts of revenue officers, there were more than 11.50 lakh applications.
The former minister stated that despite this grim state of affairs on the economic front, the BJP has set a target of making India a 5-trillion dollar economy out of which Maharashtra is supposed to contribute one trillion dollars.
The flight of industrial projects from Maharashtra to Gujarat had increased joblessness in Maharashtra, while farmers in Maharashtra commit suicide, he said.