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Political crisis hurting economy, says BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party today demanded that the Centre should end the political uncertainty currently gripping the nation which was causing it to drift the Southeast Asian way towards an economic crisis.

Commenting on Commerce Minister B B Ramaiah's confession that ''political instability'' was responsible for the nose diving of the value of the rupee against the dollar, BJP spokesman Yashwant Sinha told newspersons in New Delhi that even the World Bank's observations were also on similar lines.

Quoting statistics, Sinha, a former finance minister, said in the past two days the external debt in terms of rupee had gone up by Rs 80 billion. In 1991, the former finance minister said, the external debt of the country stood at Rs 1820 billion with the rupee standing at 20 per dollar. Six years later, with the rupee valued at 35.70 per dollar, the external debt stood at Rs 3,240 billion as on March 31, 1997.

As of date, the external debt stood at Rs 3,480 billion with the rupee sliding down to 38.30 per dollar. This shows that within the last five weeks, the debt had increased by Rs 240 billion, he pointed out.

Similarly, Sinha said the import bill has gone up by Rs 95 billion from Rs 36 billion of last year. The rupee's fall had added Rs 35 billion, he claimed.

Alleging that the United Front government was bankrupt of ideas in regard to the rupee, the BJP leader said the drop of the rupee in spite of the Reserve Bank of India's intervention was surprising. He held the UF government solely responsible for this crisis.

He suggested that the RBI be asked to take some policy to check the drift in the value of the rupee.

Referring to the West Bengal Chief Minister's allegation that the BJP had ruined the economy of the country, Sinha said, ''There is nothing left. The economy was ruined by the UF and its supporting parties in the past 18 months.''

UNI