Economic slowdown due to wrong policy decisions of NDA govt: West Bengal FM

Launching a scathing attack on the NDA government, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra on Thursday said the current slowdown is a result of wrong policy decisions like demonetisation and hasty implementation of GST.

"In the modern history of development economics, there has never been a case where wrong policy, arbitrary policy, pre-mature policy led to throwing off the track a growing economy. Economy was growing at 8.1 per cent before demonetisation," he told reporters here.

Economic growth hit a six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

"Demonetisation was a massive structural attack on foundation of economy. Within seven months comes second policy attack. GST was launched without relevant preparation creating massive problems in the economy," he said.

Terming demonetisation as "Tughlaki harakiri of wrong policy", he said there was no clear cut justification for it as the government itself changed narrative 17 times during the period.

"Objective was