‘Will affect credibility’: Shashi Tharoor urges Modi Govt to respond to ‘devastating’ GDP data critique

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has backed his party's criticism surrounding India’s latest GDP numbers calling it ‘devastating critique’, saying the government needs to provide straightforward answers or risk damaging the credibility of the country’s economic data and growth projections.

The Congress party on 3 September raised questions on the latest GDP figures released by the government earlier this week. The opposition party asked why there was a substantial downward revision in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates for the last four years and sought a detailed account of how this revision was done.

“This is a devastating critique that requires straightforward responses from the government,” Tharoor said in a post on X quoting Congress leader Jairam Ramesh's statement.

The opposition party also asked what methodology was adopted by the government to bring this revision while seeking an explanation for the reduction of ₹43 lakh crore in the estimated size of the economy.

“Otherwise it will affect the credibility of our country's economic growth figures and projections not just at home but with the rest of the world,” Tharoor, a Congress MP from Kerala said.

India's economy grew at a faster-than-expected 7.8 per cent in the April-June quarter, showing resilience in the face of concerns that the war in Iran and resulting global economic uncertainty could weigh on growth.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, in a statement, posed a set of four questions to the government on what it said is the growing evidence of "irregularities" in the just-released GDP figures.

Ramesh said the Modi government has been telling people that India's economy grew 7.8 per cent in the April-June 2026 quarter, and predictably, there has been a fair bit of "chest-thumping" about it. But if one actually sits down and looks at how this number was arrived at, the whole thing starts looking rather shaky, he claimed.

"Now, the figure for the previous April-June 2025 quarter has been revised not once but four times from around ₹86 lakh crore to about ₹80 lakh crore. And here's the catch: if you keep shrinking the base you're comparing against, this year's number will automatically look much bigger than it really is, even if nothing has actually changed on the ground. That is simple arithmetic, not economic growth.

This comes after Congress partycited criticism by former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg on GDP numbers to attack the government, saying it must understand that ‘PR can polish the picture’ of GDP but not the economy itself.

"Former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg raised exactly this point. According to his calculation, if the base year hadn't been revised down the way it was, nominal growth this quarter would be closer to 2.6 per cent, not the 10.3 per cent the government is claiming. And once you take inflation out of that, real growth is basically zero nowhere near 7.8 per cent," Ramesh said in the post on 3 September.

Ramesh said the government's new numbers look "shakiest" in two areas: manufacturing and consumption.

"According to Mr. Garg's calculations, manufacturing GVA has actually shrunk by 5.2 per cent compared to last year, while private consumption has fallen by 5.4 per cent. Independent indicators confirm his assessment," he said.

Former foreign secretary Garg, who took voluntary retirement from service, questioned the GDP numbers.

In an interview with NDTV, Garg suggested that GDP growth would have been just about 2.6 per cent in current prices if last year's GDP had not been revised down from roughly ₹86 lakh crore to ₹80 lakh crore.

Garg pointed out that real GDP data for the first quarter of the previous year was released under the old series rather than the new one. He said, however, that the figure used as the base for Q1 of 2025-26 comes from the new series.

The government responded by sayng that the Q1 2025-26 GDP estimate was initially released on August 29, 2025 under the then prevailing 2011-12 base-year series. Under that series, GDP at current prices for Q1 2025-26 was estimated at ₹86.05 lakh crore, the government said.

In February 2026, the government introduced the new GDP series with 2022-23 as the base year.

“As part of a base-year revision, the GDP estimates for the entire time series are comprehensively revised to incorporate updated data sources, improved methodologies, revised coverage and other relevant information. Accordingly, the estimate of Q1 2025-26 GDP at current prices under the new series was ₹80.32 lakh crore,” the government said in a statement on 2 September.

(With agency inputs)