Congress Criticizes Government's Economic Policies, Blames 'Raid Raj' for Sluggish Investment

The Congress on Tuesday flagged "sluggishness" in private corporate investment despite tax cuts and claims of improved ease of doing business. The party argued that the expected pickup in investment has not materialised, due to slow consumer demand linked to stagnant real wages as well as the ED-CBI-IT "raid raj", which has instilled fear among businesses. Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said that for some time now, his party has been drawing attention to a fundamental problem preventing the economy from achieving higher real GDP growth rate: the sluggishness in private corporate investment. "Tax rates have been slashed and the ease of business has allegedly improved substantially. But the intended consequence of these moves -- i.e., a boost in private investment -- has refused to materialize," Ramesh said on X. "Now the scholarly Chief Economic Adviser (V Anantha Nageswaran), in the Ministry of Finance, has lent his support to our contention by pointing out that post-COVID, India's largest companies saw their corporate profits grow at 30.8% per annum, even as they refused to invest," Ramesh said. "This stubborn refusal to invest is itself motivated by several factors such as slow consumer demand growth due to India's stagnant real wages crisis," he said.