2 min readNew DelhiJan 27, 2026 09:27 PM IST
The Congress on Tuesday questioned the government on the numbers it had presented and claimed that “inequality is on the rise” and welfare was on the “retreat”.
Days ahead of the Economic Survey and the Union Budget, Congress Research Department, headed by MP Rajeev Gowda, released a report on the state of the economy titled “Inequality on the rise, Welfare in Retreat-Real State of the Economy 2026”, stressing that it was important to lay bare “facts”. He alleged that the Centre would be pushing its “propaganda” through the President’s address to both Houses, Economic Survey and the Union Budget.
Along with Gowda, releasing the report was Congress leader Amitabh Dubey.
Flagging “rising inequality”, Gowda claimed that the top 10% control 58% of the national income while the bottom half gets only 15%. “The top 10% owns 65% of India’s wealth; bottom half owns 6.4%; top 1% owns 40%,” he said.
“The IMF gave India’s statistics a C grade. A 0.5% inflation rate is not the reality of people’s lives. Former Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian calculates that GDP figures are at least 2.5% higher than actual reality,” Gowda said. In 2024, the government’s production metric showed 9.2% GDP growth, 47% higher than GDP by expenditure metric of 4.9%, Gowda said.
“In the first half of 2025-26, manufacturing reportedly grew at 8.4%. But the index of eight core industries showed only 2.9% growth,” said Gowda, claiming that the rupee has been Asia’s worst-performing currency in 2025.
“In four of 10 months in 2025, net FDI was negative. More investors withdrew money and more Indian money was invested abroad compared to foreign investments into India,” he said.
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Between 2017-18 and 2023-24, the share of workers in manufacturing fell from 12.1% to 11.4%, he said.
“What happened to Make in India? Agriculture’s share rose from 44.1% to 46.1%… Job growth is concentrated in low value, informal, and the gig economy,” Gowda said.
Gowda said four of five Indians subsist on less than Rs 200 per day and one-third subsists on less than Rs 100/day. “Net household financial savings are at a five-decade low of 5.2%, household debt has risen sharply to 41% from 35% in 2019,” Gowda said
