New Delhi, October 14: Economist Parakala Prabhakar, also the husband of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, expressed his concern over the poor state of the Indian economy. In his opinion piece in The Hindu, he said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should adopt the PV Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh economic model to steer the economy out of choppy waters. World Bank Cuts India's Economic Growth Estimate at 6% for FY 2019-20.

In a column for The Hindu newspaper, Prabhakar, a former communications adviser to the Andhra Pradesh government, argued that the government should embrace "Rao-Singh economic architecture", referring to the liberalisation of the economy in 1991, instead of "critiquing the Nehruvian socialism". Economic Slowdown: Consumer Confidence Dips, Over 50% Indians Feel Employment Situation Has Worsened, Says RBI Survey.

"Constructs such as 'Integral Humanism' could not be rendered into practical policy initiatives in the modern market-driven, globalised world. The BJP could, therefore, have released itself from that limiting agenda by wholly embracing and even owning the Rao-Singh economic architecture," he wrote in his article.

Prabhakar in The Hindu article titled "A lodestar to steer the economy" said that the saffron party could portray Narasimha Rao on the economic front, just like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is the icon of BJP's political project.

"The BJP has not challenged or rejected Rao’s 1991 architecture. A full-fledged embrace and an aggressive pursuit of it even now could provide the BJP and the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a lodestar to steer the economy out of the choppy waters it is in at present," he said.

The World Bank had recently cut the country's economic growth forecast by the most among south- Asian countries because of deceleration in domestic demand. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth is slashed to 6 percent in the current fiscal started on April 1 from its projection of 7.5 percent, citing severe slowdown.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 14, 2019 03:05 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).