The economy appears to be in resilient mode in terms of growth, inflation and balance of payments, a combination that offers large scope for consolidation of growth momentum with continued macroeconomic stability. But hwat has happened now? What has happened after five years of UPA's misrule and mismanagement of the economy? It is only repetition of the previous performance of Manmohan Singh ji and the previous performance of Shri Chidambaram in his United Front avatar. Actually, when we inherited five years of Manmohan Singh ji under Shir Narasimha Rao and two years of Shri Chidambaram under UF, whatever the economic situation the NDA inherited from them was very grim. In 1998, the economic growth had slowed down to five per cent, the agricultural growth was negative, food grain production had crumbled from 199 million tonnes to 194 million tonnes, industrial production was at 4.3 per cent, export performance was less than three per cent and fiscal deficit was 6.1 per cent. This was the situation in 1998. Unfortunately, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Shri P. Chidambaram repeated their past performance of 1991 to 1996 and 1996 to 1998. Sir, I want to say with the help of the records that farmers are committing suicides in huge numbers. In the last 12 years, many farmers have committed suicides in the country. The year 2004 onwards, year after year, 18,241 farmers, 17,131 farmers 17,060 farmers have committed suicides. Where have these suicides taken place? They took place in the State of Maharashtra which is under the leadership of Congress Party. In the last 50 days, 47 suicides took place in Vidarbha. They took place in the State of Andhra Pradesh which is under the leadership of Congress Party. They took place in Uttar Pradesh.
