Everyone Knows the Truth But Let Arun Jaitley be Happy: Rahul Gandhi on Ease of Doing Business Report

New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has played down India's steep promotion in the World Bank rankings on Ease of Doing Business, saying "everyone knows the truth".

"Sabko maloom hai 'ease of doing business' ki hakikat, lekin khud ko khush rakhne ke liye 'Dr Jaitley' yeh khyaal acha hai (Everyone knows the truth about ease of doing business, but let Dr Jaitley keep himself happy thinking about it)," tweeted Gandhi, improvising a popular couplet by Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib.

The soon-to-be Congress president was referring to India's 30 place jump in World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings. While the government has been sounding it as an endorsement of the reforms implemented by the Narendra Modi government, the World Bank in its report had stated that it took into account only the two major Indian cities of Mumbai and Delhi.

Arun Jaitley hit back at Gandhi's comments and said that the NDA had changed UPA's "ease of doing corruption, with ease of doing business".

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, citing the report, had said that India was the only major country to have been named for undertaking structural reforms by the World Bank. "Biggest jump India got in the ease of doing business was on taxation reforms," Jaitley said.

"Jaitleyji said some foreign organisation has certified that India has considerably improved in ease of doing business," Gandhi said.

Jaitley, he said, sits in his office and believes what foreigners say.

The finance minister, Gandhi added, should meet small and mid-sized businessman for five-10 minutes and ask if the ease of doing business had really improved.

Gandhi, who was on Wednesday addressing a rally in Gujarat's Bharuch district, continued his attack in his speech and said, "Congress leaders pleaded with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and the government to not implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) in haste by they refused. GST should never be over 18% and there should not be multiple taxes."

"The entire country will shout and say ease of doing business is absent, you have destroyed it, your demonetisation and GST have ruined it," Gandhi said.

The Congress leader also alleged that demonetisation had reduced the GDP by 2%. "They have a celebration on November 8. The whole country is crying but they don't get it. Arun Jaitley sits in his office and believes what foreign sources tell him. Ask him to talk to one common small-scale businessman and the whole nation will scream that there is no ease of doing business in India," he said.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari also took to the micro-blogging site and asked why no one was ready to do business in India if the country was doing well in the ranking. "Why are domestic investments in 2016-17 lower than 1990-91 and why the savings to GDP ratio were riding above the savings to investment ratio?"