Piyush Goyal Slams Critics Questioning 7.8% GDP Growth
Commerce Minister hits back at critics questioning India’s 7.8% Q1 GDP growth, says old and new GDP series cannot be compared
- Piyush Goyal defended India’s 7.8% Q1 GDP growth.
- He accused critics of comparing old and new GDP series.
- Raghuram Rajan, Subhash Chandra Garg and Jairam Ramesh have questioned aspects of the data.
- MoSPI defended the new methodology and 2022-23 GDP base year.
GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 2nd Sept: Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday strongly criticised Opposition leaders and former officials questioning India’s 7.8% GDP growth in the April-June 2026 quarter, accusing them of comparing figures from different GDP series.
Speaking at the 66th annual session of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA) in New Delhi, Goyal said critics were attempting to mislead the public by comparing the old GDP series with the new series, whose base year has changed.
“They don’t even know [that they should] compare apples with apples,” Goyal said, adding that the growth rate under the old series should not be compared with the rate calculated under the new series.
‘Only jobless people left’
Taking a swipe at those questioning whether the growth is translating into jobs, Goyal said critics were “trying to find holes” in the economic data.
“They cannot digest that they themselves are the only jobless people left,” he said, alleging that their only remaining job was to appear on television panels and “concoct and manufacture an argument.”
Goyal also defended the credibility of the official statistics, saying, “Truth cannot be hidden” and that ministers do not manufacture GDP data.
He said attempts to distort economic figures and demotivate people amounted to betraying the public.
Rajan, Garg question GDP figures
Goyal’s remarks came after former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg raised questions over the latest GDP figures.
Rajan questioned whether the growth numbers accurately reflected the broader economy and pointed to concerns over job creation and investment. Garg, meanwhile, argued that the headline 7.8% figure needs to be examined in the context of changes to the GDP base and revisions to previous-year data.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh has also criticised the figures, describing them as a “Greatly Distorted Picture” of the economy and questioning whether strong GDP growth was being reflected in investment, consumption and employment.
Government defends new GDP series
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has separately rejected the argument that the latest GDP calculation was mechanically boosted by revising the previous year’s figures.
In its clarification, the ministry said the ₹86.05 lakh crore figure cited in comparisons belonged to the old 2011-12 base-year series, while the new estimates use the 2022-23 base year. It said the two figures could not be directly compared and termed it incorrect to interpret the difference as a deliberate downward revision designed to increase the growth rate.
India’s real GDP grew 7.8% in the first quarter of FY2026-27, exceeding the Reserve Bank of India’s earlier 7% forecast. The economy had recorded 8.6% growth in the preceding quarter.
Goyal credits Modi, Indians for growth
Goyal described the 7.8% growth as unprecedented and credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership along with the collective efforts of India’s 140 crore people.
He also criticised those who, according to him, want to portray India as a “dead economy”, asserting that the country would continue to grow rapidly under Modi’s leadership.
At the ACMA event, Goyal also called upon India’s automotive component industry to expand globally, strengthen supply chains and move up the value chain as India deepens its integration with global markets.
