In a sharp rebuttal on Tuesday, YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy accused Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu of misleading the public on the financial performance of Andhra Pradesh. His remarks came after Mr. Naidu released estimates for the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) for the first half of the 2025–26 financial year. Mr. Jagan alleged that the TDP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had inflated the GSDP projections to create a false impression of rapid economic growth. Governments may manipulate advance estimates on paper, but they cannot alter the audited financial records released by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), he said, adding that the CAG figures present the State’s actual fiscal position. According to him, the latest CAG data expose serious financial mismanagement under the present regime, with very low revenue growth, unprecedented levels of borrowing, minimal capital expenditure, and a steep fall in both consumption and investment. He also alleged rampant corruption and systemic diversion of public resources, which, he said, had widened the revenue and fiscal deficits. If the economy were truly flourishing as claimed, Mr. Jagan said, the State would not be facing such acute financial stress or record levels of borrowing. He contested Mr. Naidu’s repeated claims of exceptional growth during his earlier tenure from 2014 to 2019, noting that Andhra Pradesh contributed 4.45% to the national GDP in that period, compared with 4.78% between 2019 and 2024. The State’s per capita income ranking, he said, did not improve even by a single position during Mr. Naidu’s rule. Mr. Jagan said the government was attempting to foster an artificial sense of optimism even as the fiscal situation worsened, warning that the underlying reality would soon become evident to the people.
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