Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has urged the Modi government to respond to questions raised over revisions to the GDP series. Tharoor said the criticism was serious enough to warrant “straightforward responses” to protect the credibility of India’s economic data.
The controversy comes after India reported 7.8 per cent real GDP growth in the April-June quarter, the strongest quarterly growth rate in the new GDP series.
Tharoor shared Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh’s criticism on X, describing it as a “devastating critique”.
Ramesh has questioned how the government arrived at the latest GDP numbers and raised concerns over the sharp revision in the estimated size of the economy for the previous year.
The key questions raised by Congress include:
Why was the GDP estimate for April-June 2025 revised down from around ₹86 lakh crore to ₹80.32 lakh crore?
What methodology led to the revision?
How does the change in the base affect the reported 7.8 per cent growth?
Why do some alternative calculations point to significantly weaker growth?
The government has defended the revised numbers, saying the changes are part of the normal process of updating the GDP series.
India introduced a new GDP series in February 2026, shifting the base year from 2011-12 to 2022-23. The government said that when a new base year is introduced, the entire historical GDP series is recalculated using updated data sources, methodologies and coverage.
Under the earlier series, Q1 FY2025-26 GDP at current prices was estimated at ₹86.05 lakh crore. Under the new series, the estimate was revised to ₹80.32 lakh crore.
The political row intensified after former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg questioned the implications of the revised base.
According to calculations cited by Ramesh, if the previous year’s GDP had not been revised down, nominal growth in the latest quarter would have been closer to 2.6 per cent rather than the government’s reported 10.3 per cent.
Ramesh also cited Garg’s calculations suggesting weakness in manufacturing and private consumption.
However, these calculations represent an alternative interpretation of the data and should not be confused with the government’s official GDP estimate.
Tharoor warned that unresolved questions over the methodology could have implications beyond domestic politics.
“If straightforward answers are not provided,” he argued, the controversy could affect the credibility of India’s economic growth figures and projections both within the country and internationally.
The debate now centres on whether the revisions under the new GDP series adequately explain the sharp change in the base used to calculate growth—and whether the headline 7.8 per cent figure accurately reflects the underlying momentum of the economy.
