NEW DELHI: The Congress on Thursday questioned the government on the latest GDP figures and asked why there was a substantial downward revision in GDP estimates for the last four years and sought a detailed account of how this revision was done.
The opposition party also asked what methodology was adopted by the government to bring this revision while seeking an explanation for the reduction of Rs 43 lakh crore in the estimated size of the economy.
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 us 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.
He said to calculate any growth rate, one needs last year's GDP figure to compare against.
"Now, the figure for the previous April-June 2025 quarter has been revised not once but four times from around Rs 86 lakh crore to about Rs 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.
"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," he said.
Alleging four years of GDP overreporting, the Congress leader said this issue is much larger as the government has not just revised down the figure for the April-June 25 quarter, but for all four years since FY2022-23.
The "new series" has reduced the nominal GDP figure for every year and almost every quarter of the four years and it has gone down by between Rs 8-12 lakh crore each year.
"This means we have been overreporting our GDP for the last 4 years," he alleged.
"Taken together, the GDP has been revised down by Rs 43 lakh crore across 4 years. This is a very large correction.
"The implication is that an excess of goods and services valued at Rs 43 lakh crore had been included in the GDP and has now been removed. The government must provide an explanation for this. How has a change in methodology produced such a large drop in the estimated size of the Indian economy," he asked.
Sharing his statement on X, Ramesh said, "Our statement on the growing evidence of irregularities in the just-released GDP figures. The Modi Government must answer 4 straight questions."
"Why was there such a substantial downward revision in the GDP estimates for all 4 years? What is the explanation for an aggregate reduction of Rs 43 lakh crore in the estimated size of India's economy?
"What are the components of the new methodology that have driven such a shift? The government must provide a detailed account of how this revision was done," he asked.
Asking what process was followed to develop the new methodology, he said, "Who was consulted and what was the basis for adoption of different components? What is the rationale for a deflation method that reduces the impact of inflation in real GDP calculation."
Normally the gap between the government's deflator and these real-world inflation numbers is small, about 1 to 1.3 percentage points, he said, adding that this time it widened to 3.4 points, apparently the largest such gap on record.
"Use a deflator closer to what people are actually experiencing, and that 7.8 per cent figure comes down considerably, perhaps to somewhere around 4-6 per cent, if not lower. It is difficult to reconcile skyrocketing household budgets with an economy that supposedly has barely any inflation in it," the Congress leader said.
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.
Noting that this is also not the first time such doubts have been raised about India's GDP data, the Congress leader said former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian has pointed out that growth was actually underestimated during the 2005-2011 boom years, but has been consistently overestimated since the methodology and base year were changed in 2011-12.
Putting out the bigger picture, Ramesh said, "Taken together previous years' GDP being drastically revised downward, a deflator that is completely out of step with what people are actually paying at the market. And a fairly long history of economists and now even the IMF flagging concerns about the data itself there is more than enough reason to ask whether this growth figure reflects reality, or whether it is simply a case of the arithmetic being made to work in the government's favour.