Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came in for scathing criticism from the Congress party Friday, accusing him of mishandling an increasingly depreciating Indian rupee. Modi was called on by the opposition to deliver a clear and effective plan of action to rein in the rupee’s never-ending decline. Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate, in a press conference in New Delhi, said that PM Modi had said that a depreciating rupee also hurts the dignity of the Prime Minister’s office. Now, it is hovering around 87 rupees to a dollar compared to the 58, and the rupee was handed over to him in 2014. Shrinate said Modi has apparently conceded to letting the rupee hit a century.
The Congress party also criticized the government’s absence of a coherent strategy for stabilizing the currency. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has spent more than $80 billion from India’s foreign exchange reserves since September 2024 to cool the rupee’s slide, yet it has failed to stem the rupee’s fall. “The rupee has depreciated by 50 percent under Modi’s leadership than when he came into being in 2014,” said Shrinate.
In order to highlight the gravity of the situation, the spokesperson of the Congress compared Modi’s tenure with that of the previous Indian prime ministers and drew attention to the fact that the minds of the leaders belonging to Congress, as well as other political parties had helped to tackle the economy.
The Congress party raised several important questions for the government: “Does the Modi government understand the effects of a depreciating rupee on economy? So what concrete plan do they have to revive and strengthen the rupee? For how long will we continue to deplete our foreign exchange reserves for the stability of the rupee? Have they thought about a rupee falling spurs inflation and hurts common people?”
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