Yashwant Sinha wrote in an article in The Indian Express that the economy was in distress and the shock recall of high-value banknotes last year proved to be an “unmitigated economic disaster”.

India’s economic growth slid to a three-year low in the last quarter, prompting the Opposition to criticise the government for disrupting business activity through demonetisation. Gross domestic product grew 5.7% in April-June, its slowest pace since the January-March quarter 2014.

Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha’s son and Union minister Jayant Sinha said on Thursday structural reforms were necessary to create a ‘New India’.

On Thursday, in his article published in TOI ., Jayant Sinha said: “Several articles have been written recently on the challenges facing the Indian economy. Unfortunately, these articles draw sweeping conclusions from a narrow set of facts, and quite simply miss the fundamental structural reforms that are transforming the economy.”

“Moreover, one or two quarters of GDP growth and other macro data are quite inadequate to evaluate the long-term impact of the structural reforms underway,” he added.

Earlier In his editorial titled ‘I need to speak up now’, Yashwant Sinha earlier lashed out at finance minister Arun Jaitley for making a “mess” of the Indian economy, which he said was headed for a “hard landing” as sector after sector is slipping into distress.

The finance minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government said Prime Minister Narendra Modi “claims he has seen poverty from close quarters (and) his finance minister is working over-time to make sure that all Indians also see it from equally close quarters”.

Yashwant Sinha stood by his remarks on Thursday, saying he felt the need to speak up as the government did not address the issue of the economy’s slide in the public domain.

Political observers raised eyebrows in astonishment when modi government used Jr. Sinha to respond who replied rather qualitative against the quantitative charges of Sr.Sinha.