Depends on the point of view.

A very strong supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, SS Bhalla has written how his own study of nights lights in India, consumption of cereals and meat and sale of 75% of consumer goods shows that the gross domestic product grew strongly during Modi's tenure since 2014. He blames the sharp slowdown of growth since 2018 "to the ultra-tight monetary policy followed by Urjit Patel-Viral Acharya duo and the NBFC (non-banking financial companies)". Easy to blame the previous Governor of the Reserve Bank (RBI) who resigned, but Bhalla does not blame Patel's successor, who cut interest rate by 5.15% in 2019, for retail inflation jumping to 7.35% in December. Bhalla was a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council and could be embarrassed by his own advice. The NBFC crisis started when IL&FS, which had central and state government officials on its board, collapsed, wrote G Haldea. This led to a severe liquidity crisis for the entire NBFC sector as banks refused to lend money to them. "It is easy for armchair analysts, many of whom seem to be dexterous to hold forth on any topic, leave alone the Union budget," wrote another supporter A Padmanabhan. He then decides to "hold forth" himself when he advises the Finance Minister to come clean on the economy and announce that "there is no magic bullet and the country has to dig in for the long haul". This apparently will improve the government's credibility which was eroded completely when two non-official members of the National Statistical Commission resigned because the government suppressed its report on unemployment. Trouble is that the truth will collapse the stock market which is in record territory in expectation of good news in the budget. With market capitalization wiped out, lucrative electoral bonds may also dry up. The GDP cannot grow unless productivity of agriculture, which employs 44% of the workforce but accounts for only 14-15% of GDP, is improved, said Prof Ashok Gulati. Money for rural development "is going in terms of subsidies, in terms of more of unproductive subsidies or even distorting subsidies like fertilizer subsidy or MGNREGA which is a fall-back arrangement, not a sort of business model on which sustainable income can be generated". He wants subsidies, including food subsidy, to be rationalized and an increase in agricultural research which is "peanuts" at Rs 70 billion. Incendiary stuff. It is easy to throw taxpayer money on subsidies but stopping them could be electoral suicide. Meanwhile, farmers are not getting insurance money owed to them after paying premiums. "In India, there is no evidence that good economics can win you elections," wrote Shankar Sharma. Hence, Modi is right to focus on politics. Unemployment is rising with the labor force participation rate (LFPR) falling among young people, wrote Vivek Kaul. The demographic dividend is turning into a nightmare. That could lose the next election.