At a book release function, Jaitley refrained from taking Yashwant Sinha’s name but said he does not have the luxury as yet of being a former finance minister nor does he have the luxury of being a former finance minister who has turned a columnist.

Jaitley went further and teased perhaps the book could have been better titled as “India@70, Modi@3.5 and a job applicant @80”.

Jaitley reminded Sinha, a colleague of his in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that when he was finance minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998-2002, non-performing assets (NPAs) of commercial banks stood at a “staggering” 15% of total advances. And in 1991, Sinha had left the office of finance minister with only $4 billion of foreign exchange reserves.

“The Reserve Bank of India had to bring down interest rates radically to deal with the high level of NPAs,” Jaitley said.

Sinha wrote in a column published in Express on Wednesday that the economy is on a “downward spiral” and specifically blamed Jaitley for demonetisation, which he claimed was an “unmitigated economic disaster” and a “badly conceived and poorly implemented” Goods and Services Tax (GST) that has played “havoc” with businesses.

A day after his father’s critical views on the government were published, minister of state in charge of aviation Jayant Sinha defended the government in an article published in TOI.

Earlier Rss affiliate bharatiya mazdoor sangh., Thuklaq Editor and Modi friend RSS supporter Gurumuthi and BJP MP Subramaniya swamy blamed economy policy of Modi Government.